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+*Project Gutenberg Etext of The Evil Genius, by Wilkie Collins*
+#16 in our series by Wilkie Collins
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+The Evil Genius
+
+by Wilkie Collins
+
+February, 1999  [Etext #1627]
+[Date last updated: April 15, 2005]
+
+
+*Project Gutenberg Etext of The Evil Genius, by Wilkie Collins*
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+
+
+
+[Italics are indicated by underscores
+James Rusk, jrusk@cyberramp.net.]
+
+
+
+
+
+THE EVIL GENIUS
+
+by Wilkie Colllins
+
+
+
+
+A Domestic Story
+
+
+
+
+Affectionately Dedicated
+to Holman Hunt
+
+
+
+
+BEFORE THE STORY.
+
+Miss Westerfield's Education
+
+1.--The Trial.
+
+THE gentlemen of the jury retired to consider their verdict.
+
+Their foreman was a person doubly distinguished among his
+colleagues. He had the clearest head, and the readiest tongue.
+For once the right man was in the right place.
+
+Of the eleven jurymen, four showed their characters on the
+surface. They were:
+
+The hungry juryman, who wanted his dinner.
+
+The inattentive juryman, who drew pictures on his blotting paper.
+
+The nervous juryman, who suffered from fidgets.
+
+The silent juryman, who decided the verdict.
+
+Of the seven remaining members, one was a little drowsy man who
+gave no trouble; one was an irritable invalid who served under
+protest; and five represented that vast majority of the
+population--easily governed, tranquilly happy--which has no
+opinion of its own.
+
+
+
+The foreman took his place at the head of the table. His
+colleagues seated themselves on either side of him. Then there
+fell upon that assembly of men a silence, never known among an
+assembly of women--the silence which proceeds from a general
+reluctance to be the person who speaks first.
+
+It was the foreman's duty, under these circumstances, to treat
+his deliberative brethren as we treat our watches when they stop:
+he wound the jury up and set them going.
+
+"Gentlemen," he began, "have you formed any decided opinion on
+the case--thus far?"
+
+Some of them said "Yes," and some of them said "No." The little
+drowsy man said nothing. The fretful invalid cried, "Go on!" The
+nervous juryman suddenly rose. His brethren all looked at him,
+inspired by the same fear of having got an orator among them. He
+was an essentially polite man; and he hastened to relieve their
+minds. "Pray don't be alarmed, gentlemen: I am not going to make
+a speech. I suffer from fidgets. Excuse me if I occasionally
+change my position." The hungry juryman (who dined early) looked
+at his watch. "Half-past four," he said. "For Heaven's sake cut
+it short." He was the fattest person present; and he suggested a
+subject to the inattentive juryman who drew pictures on his
+blotting-paper. Deeply interested in the progress of the
+likeness, his neighbors on either side looked over his shoulders.
+The little drowsy man woke with a start, and begged pardon of
+everybody. The fretful invalid said to himself, "Damned fools,
+all of them!" The patient foreman, biding his time, stated the
+case.
+
+"The prisoner waiting our verdict, gentlemen, is the Honorable
+Roderick Westerfield, younger brother of the present Lord Le
+Basque. He is charged with willfully casting away the British
+bark _John Jerniman_, under his command, for the purpose of
+fraudulently obtaining a share of the insurance money; and
+further of possessing himself of certain Brazilian diamonds,
+which formed part of the cargo. In plain words, here is a
+gentleman born in the higher ranks of life accused of being a
+thief. Before we attempt to arrive at a decision, we shall only
+be doing him justice if we try to form some general estimate of
+his character, based on the evidence--and we may fairly begin by
+inquiring into his relations with the noble family to which he
+belongs. The evidence, so far, is not altogether creditable to
+him. Being at the time an officer of the Royal Navy, he appears
+to have outraged the feelings of his family by marrying a barmaid
+at a public-house."
+
+The drowsy juryman, happening to be awake at that moment,
+surprised the foreman by interposing a statement. "Talking of
+barmaids," he said, "I know a curate's daughter. She's in
+distressed circumstances, poor thing; and she's a barmaid
+somewhere in the north of England. Curiously enough, the name of
+the town has escaped my memory. If we had a map of England--"
+There he was interrupted, cruelly interrupted, by one of his
+brethren.
+
+"And by what right," cried the greedy juryman, speaking under the
+exasperating influence of hunger--"by what right does Mr.
+Westerfield's family dare to suppose that a barmaid may not be a
+perfectly virtuous woman?"
+
+Hearing this, the restless gentleman (in the act of changing his
+position) was suddenly inspired with interest in the proceedings.
+"Pardon me for putting myself forward," he said, with his
+customary politeness. "Speaking as an abstainer from fermented
+liquors, I must really protest against these allusions to
+barmaids."
+
+"Speaking as a consumer of fermented liquors," the invalid
+remarked, "I wish I had a barmaid and a bottle of champagne
+before me now."
+
+Superior to interruption, the admirable foreman went on:
+
+"Whatever you may think, gentlemen, of the prisoner's marriage,
+we have it in evidence that his relatives turned their backs on
+him from that moment--with the one merciful exception of the head
+of the family. Lord Le Basque exerted his influence with the
+Admiralty, and obtained for his brother (then out of employment)
+an appointment to a ship. All the witnesses agree that Mr.
+Westerfield thoroughly understood his profession. If he could
+have controlled himself, he might have risen to high rank in the
+Navy. His temper was his ruin. He quarreled with one of his
+superior officers--"
+
+"Under strong provocation," said a member of the jury.
+
+"Under strong provocation," the foreman admitted. "But provocation
+is not an excuse, judged by the rules of discipline. The prisoner
+challenged the officer on duty to fight a duel, at the first
+opportunity, on shore; and, receiving a contemptuous refusal,
+struck him on the quarter-deck. As a matter of course, Mr.
+Westerfield was tried by court-martial, and was dismissed the
+service. Lord Le Basque's patience was not exhausted yet. The
+Merchant Service offered a last chance to the prisoner of
+retrieving his position, to some extent at least. He was fit for
+the sea, and fit for nothing else. At my lord's earnest request
+the owners of the _John Jerniman_, trading between Liverpool and
+Rio, took Mr. Westerfield on trial as first mate, and, to his
+credit be it said, he justified his brother's faith in him. In a
+tempest off the coast of Africa the captain was washed overboard
+and the first mate succeeded to the command. His seamanship and
+courage saved the vessel, under circumstances of danger which
+paralyzed the efforts of the other officers.. He was confirmed,
+rightly confirmed, in the command of the ship. And, so far, we
+shall certainly not be wrong if we view his character on the
+favorable side."
+
+There the foreman paused, to collect his ideas.
+
+Certain members of the assembly--led by the juryman who wanted
+his dinner, and supported by his inattentive colleague, then
+engaged in drawing a ship in a storm, and a captain falling
+overboard--proposed the acquittal of the prisoner without further
+consideration. But the fretful invalid cried "Stuff!" and the
+five jurymen who had no opinions of their own, struck by the
+admirable brevity with which he expressed his sentiments, sang
+out in chorus, "Hear! hear! hear!" The silent juryman, hitherto
+overlooked, now attracted attention. He was a bald-headed person
+of uncertain age, buttoned up tight in a long frockcoat, and
+wearing his gloves all through the proceedings. When the chorus
+of five cheered, he smiled mysteriously. Everybody wondered what
+that smile meant. The silent juryman kept his opinion to himself.
+From that moment he began to exercise a furtive influence over
+the jury. Even the foreman looked at him, on resuming the
+narrative.
+
+"After a certain term of service, gentlemen, during which we
+learn nothing to his disadvantage, the prisoner's merits appear
+to have received their reward. He was presented with a share in
+the ship which he commanded, in addition to his regular salary as
+master. With these improved prospects he sailed from Liverpool on
+his last voyage to Brazil; and no one, his wife included, had the
+faintest suspicion that he left England under circumstances of
+serious pecuniary embarrassment. The testimony of his creditors,
+and of other persons with whom he associated distinctly proves
+that his leisure hours on shore had been employed in card-playing
+and in betting on horse races. After an unusually long run of
+luck, his good fortune seems to have deserted him. He suffered
+considerable losses, and was at last driven to borrowing at a
+high rate of interest, without any reasonable prospect of being
+able to repay the money-lenders into whose hands he had fallen.
+When he left Rio on the homeward voyage, there is no sort of
+doubt that he was returning to England to face creditors whom he
+was unable to pay. There, gentlemen, is a noticeable side to his
+character which we may call the gambling side, and which (as I
+think) was too leniently viewed by the judge."
+
+He evidently intended to add a word or two more. But the
+disagreeable invalid insisted on being heard.
+
+"In plain English," he said, "you are for finding the prisoner
+guilty."
+
+"In plain English," the foreman rejoined, "I refuse to answer
+that question."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because it is no part of my duty to attempt to influence the
+verdict."
+
+"You have been trying to influence the verdict, sir, ever since
+you entered this room. I appeal to all the gentlemen present."
+
+The patience of the long-suffering foreman failed him at last.
+"Not another word shall pass my lips," he said, "until you find
+the prisoner guilty or not guilty among yourselves--and then I'll
+tell you if I agree to your verdict."
+
+He folded his arms, and looked like the image of a man who
+intended to keep his word.
+
+The hungry juryman laid himself back in his chair, and groaned.
+The amateur artist, who had thus far found a fund of amusement in
+his blotting-paper, yawned discontentedly and dropped his pen.
+The courteous gentleman who suffered from fidgets requested leave
+to walk up and down the room; and at the first turn he took woke
+the drowsy little man, and maddened the irritable invalid by the
+creaking of his boots. The chorus of five, further than ever from
+arriving at an opinion of their own, looked at the silent
+juryman. Once more he smiled mysteriously; and once more he
+offered an explanation of what was passing in his mind--except
+that he turned his bald head slowly in the direction of the
+foreman. Was he in sympathy with a man who had promised to be as
+silent as himself?
+
+In the meantime, nothing was said or done. Helpless silence
+prevailed in every part of the room.
+
+"Why the devil doesn't somebody begin?" cried the invalid. "Have
+you all forgotten the evidence?"
+
+This startling question roused the jury to a sense of what was
+due to their oaths, if not to themselves. Some of them
+recollected the evidence in one way, and some of them recollected
+it in another; and each man insisted on doing justice to his own
+excellent memory, and on stating his own unanswerable view of the
+case.
+
+The first man who spoke began at the middle of the story told by
+the witnesses in court. "I am for acquitting the captain,
+gentlemen; he ordered out the boats, and saved the lives of the
+crew."--"And I am for finding him guilty, because the ship struck
+on a rock in broad daylight, and in moderate weather."--"I agree
+with you, sir. The evidence shows that the vessel was steered
+dangerously near to the land, by direction of the captain, who
+gave the course."--"Come, come, gentlemen! let us do the captain
+justice. The defense declares that he gave the customary course,
+and that it was not followed when he left the deck. As for his
+leaving the ship in moderate weather, the evidence proves that he
+believed he saw signs of a storm brewing."--"Yes, yes, all very
+well, but what were the facts? When the loss of the ship was
+reported, the Brazilian authorities sent men to the wreck, on the
+chance of saving the cargo; and, days afterward, there the ship
+was found, just as the captain and the crew had left
+her."--"Don't forget, sir, that the diamonds were missing when
+the salvors examined the wreck."--"All right, but that's no proof
+that the captain stole the diamonds; and, before they had saved
+half the cargo, a storm did come on and break the vessel up; so
+the poor man was only wrong in the matter of time, after
+all."--"Allow me to remind you, gentlemen that the prisoner was
+deeply in debt, and therefore had an interest in stealing the
+diamonds."--"Wait a little, sir. Fair play's a jewel. Who was in
+charge of the deck when the ship struck? The second mate. And
+what did the second mate do, when he heard that his owners had
+decided to prosecute? He committed suicide! Is there no proof of
+guilt in that act?"--"You are going a little too fast, sir. The
+coroner's jury declared that the second mate killed himself in a
+state of temporary insanity."--"Gently! gently! we have nothing
+to do with what the coroner's jury said. What did the judge say
+when he summed up?"--"Bother the judge! He said what they all
+say: 'Find the prisoner guilty, if you think he did it; and find
+him not guilty, if you think he didn't.' And then he went away to
+his comfortable cup of tea in his private room. And here are we
+perishing of hunger, and our families dining without us."--"Speak
+for yourself, sir, _I_ haven't got a family."--"Consider yourself
+lucky, sir; _I_ have got twelve, and my life is a burden to me,
+owing to the difficulty of making both ends meet."--"Gentlemen!
+gentlemen! we are wandering again. Is the captain guilty or not?
+Mr. Foreman, we none of us intended to offend you. Will you tell
+us what _you_ think?"
+
+No; the foreman kept his word. "Decide for yourselves first," was
+his only reply.
+
+In this emergency, the member afflicted with fidgets suddenly
+assumed a position of importance. He started a new idea.
+
+"Suppose we try a show of hands," he suggested. "Gentlemen who
+find the prisoner guilty will please hold up their hands."
+
+Three votes were at once registered in this way, including the
+vote of the foreman. After a moment of doubt, the chorus of five
+decided on following the opinion which happened to be the first
+opinion expressed in point of time. Thereupon, the show of hands
+for the condemnation of the prisoner rose to eight. Would this
+result have an effect on the undecided minority of four? In any
+case, they were invited to declare themselves next. Only three
+hands were held up. One incomprehensible man abstained from
+expressing his sentiments even by a sign. Is it necessary to say
+who that man was? A mysterious change had now presented itself in
+his appearance, which made him an object of greater interest than
+ever. His inexplicable smile had vanished. He sat immovable, with
+closed eyes. Was he meditating profoundly? or was he only asleep?
+The quick-witted foreman had long since suspected him of being
+simply the stupidest person present--with just cunning enough to
+conceal his own dullness by holding his tongue. The jury arrived
+at no such sensible conclusion. Impressed by the intense
+solemnity of his countenance, they believed him to be absorbed in
+reflections of the utmost importance to the verdict. After a
+heated conference among themselves, they decided on inviting the
+one independent member present--the member who had taken no part
+in their proceedings--to declare his opinion in the plainest
+possible form. "Which way does your view of the verdict incline,
+sir? Guilty or not guilty?"
+
+The eyes of the silent juryman opened with the slow and solemn
+dilation of the eyes of an owl. Placed between the alternatives
+of declaring himself in one word or in two, his taciturn wisdom
+chose the shortest form of speech. "Guilty," he answered--and
+shut his eyes again, as if he had had enough of it already.
+
+An unutterable sense of relief pervaded the meeting. Enmities
+were forgotten and friendly looks were exchanged. With one
+accord, the jury rose to return to court. The prisoner's fate was
+sealed. The verdict was Guilty.
+
+
+2.--The Sentence.
+
+
+The low hum of talk among the persons in court ceased when the
+jury returned to their places. Curiosity now found its center of
+attraction in the prisoner's wife--who had been present
+throughout the trial. The question of the moment was: How will
+she bear the interval of delay which precedes the giving of the
+verdict?
+
+In the popular phrase, Mrs. Westerfield was a showy woman. Her
+commanding figure was finely robed in dark colors; her profuse
+light hair hung over her forehead in little clusters of ringlets;
+her features, firmly but not delicately shaped, were on a large
+scale. No outward betrayal of the wife's emotion rewarded the
+public curiosity: her bold light-gray eyes sustained the general
+gaze without flinching. To the surprise of the women present, she
+had brought her two young children with her to the trial. The
+eldest was a pretty little girl of ten years old; the second
+child (a boy) sat on his mother's knee. It was generally observed
+that Mrs. Westerfield took no notice of her eldest child. When
+she whispered a word from time to time, it was always addressed
+to her son. She fondled him when he grew restless; but she never
+looked round to see if the girl at her side was as weary of the
+proceedings as the boy.
+
+The judge took his seat, and the order was given to bring the
+prisoner up for judgment.
+
+There was a long pause. The audience--remembering his ghastly
+face when he first appeared before them--whispered to each other,
+"He's taken ill"; and the audience proved to be right.
+
+The surgeon of the prison entered the witness-box, and, being
+duly sworn, made his medical statement.
+
+The prisoner's heart had been diseased for some time past, and
+the malady had been neglected. He had fainted under the prolonged
+suspense of waiting for the verdict. The swoon had proved to be
+of such a serious nature that the witness refused to answer for
+consequences if a second fainting-fit was produced by the
+excitement of facing the court and the jury.
+
+Under these circumstances, the verdict was formally recorded, and
+sentence was deferred. Once more, the spectators looked at the
+prisoner's wife.
+
+She had risen to leave the court. In the event of an adverse
+verdict, her husband had asked for a farewell interview; and the
+governor of the prison, after consultation with the surgeon, had
+granted the request. It was observed, when she retired, that she
+held her boy by the hand, and left the girl to follow. A
+compassionate lady near her offered to take care of the children
+while she was absent. Mrs. Westerfield answered quietly and
+coldly: "Thank you--their father wishes to see them."
+
+The prisoner was dying; nobody could look at him and doubt it.
+
+His eyes opened wearily, when his wife and children approached
+the bed on which he lay helpless--the wreck of a grandly-made
+man. He struggled for breath, but he could still speak a word or
+two at a time. "I don't ask you what the verdict is," he said to
+his wife; "I see it in your face."
+
+Tearless and silent, she waited by her husband's side. He had
+only noticed her for a moment. All his interest seemed to be
+centered in his children. The girl stood nearest to him, he
+looked at her with a faint smile.
+
+The poor child understood him. Crying piteously, she put her arms
+around his neck and kissed him. "Dear papa," she said; "come home
+and let me nurse you."
+
+The surgeon, watching the father's face, saw a change in him
+which the other persons present had not observed. The failing
+heart felt that parting moment, and sank under it. "Take the
+child away," the surgeon whispered to the mother. Brandy was near
+him; he administered it while he spoke, and touched the
+fluttering pulse. It felt, just felt, the stimulant. He revived
+for a moment, and looked wistfully for his son. "The boy," he
+murmured; "I want my boy." As his wife brought the child to him,
+the surgeon whispered to her again. "If you have anything to say
+to him be quick about it!" She shuddered; she took his cold hand.
+Her touch seemed to nerve him with new strength; he asked her to
+stoop over him. "They won't let me write here," he whispered,
+"unless they see my letter." He paused to get his breath again.
+"Lift up my left arm," he gasped. "Open the wrist-band."
+
+She detached the stud which closed the wrist-band of the shirt.
+On the inner side of the linen there was a line written in red
+letters--red of the color of blood. She saw these words: _Look in
+the lining of my trunk._
+
+"What for?" she asked.
+
+The fading light in his eyes flashed on her a dreadful look of
+doubt. His lips fell apart in the vain effort to answer. His last
+sigh fluttered the light ringlets of her hair as she bent over
+him.
+
+The surgeon pointed to her children. "Take the poor things home,"
+he said; "they have seen the last of their father."
+
+Mrs. Westerfield obeyed in silence. She had her own reasons for
+being in a hurry to get home. Leaving the children under the
+servant's care, she locked herself up in the dead man's room, and
+emptied his trunk of the few clothes that had been left in it.
+
+The lining which she was now to examine was of the customary
+material, and of the usual striped pattern in blue and white. Her
+fingers were not sufficiently sensitive to feel anything under
+the surface, when she tried it with her hand. Turning the empty
+trunk with the inner side of the lid toward the light, she
+discovered, on one of the blue stripes of the lining, a thin
+little shining stain which looked like a stain of dried gum.
+After a moment's consideration, she cut the gummed line with a
+penknife. Something of a white color appeared through the
+aperture. She drew out a folded sheet of paper.
+
+It proved to be a letter in her husband's hand-writing. An
+inclosure dropped to the floor when she opened it, in the shape
+of a small slip of paper. She picked it up. The morsel of paper
+presented letters, figures, and crosses arranged in lines, and
+mingled together in what looked like hopeless confusion.
+
+
+3.--The Letter.
+
+
+Mrs. Westerfield laid the incomprehensible slip of paper aside,
+and, in search of an explanation, returned to the letter. Here
+again she found herself in a state of perplexity. Directed to
+"Mrs. Roderick Westerfield," the letter began abruptly, without
+the customary form of address. Did it mean that her husband was
+angry with her when he wrote? It meant that he doubted her.
+
+In these terms he expressed himself:
+
+
+
+"I write to you before my trial takes place. If the verdict goes
+in my favor, I shall destroy what I have written. If I am found
+guilty, I must leave it to you to do what I should otherwise have
+done for myself.
+
+"The undeserved misfortune that has overtaken me began with the
+arrival of my ship in the port of Rio. Our second mate (his duty
+for the day being done) asked leave to go on shore--and never
+returned. What motive determined him on deserting, I am not able
+to say. It was my own wish to supply his place by promoting the
+best seaman on board. My owners' agents overruled me, and
+appointed a man of their own choosing.
+
+"What nation he belonged to I don't know. The name he gave me was
+Beljames, and he was reported to be a broken-down gentleman.
+Whoever he might be, his manner and his talk were captivating.
+Everybody liked him.
+
+"After the two calamities of the loss of the ship and the
+disappearance of the diamonds--these last being valued at five
+thousand pounds--I returned to England by the first opportunity
+that offered, having Beljames for a companion.
+
+"Shortly after getting back to my house in London, I was
+privately warned by a good friend that my owners had decided to
+prosecute me for willfully casting away the ship, and (crueler
+still) for having stolen the missing diamonds. The second mate,
+who had been in command of the vessel when she struck on the
+rock, was similarly charged along with me. Knowing myself to be
+innocent, I determined, of course, to stand my trial. My wonder
+was, what Beljames would do. Would he follow my example? or, if
+he got the chance, would he try to make his escape?
+
+"I might have thought it only friendly to give this person a word
+of warning, if I had known where to find him. We had separated
+when the ship reached the port of Falmouth, in Cornwall, and had
+not met since. I gave him my address in London; but he gave me no
+address in return.
+
+"On the voyage home, Beljames told me that a legacy had been left
+to him; being a small freehold house and garden in St. John's
+Wood, London. His agent, writing to him on the subject, had
+reported the place to be sadly out of repair, and had advised him
+to find somebody who would take it off his hands on reasonable terms.
+This seemed to point to a likelihood of his being still in London,
+trying to sell his house.
+
+"While my mind was running on these recollections, I was told
+that a decent elderly woman wanted to see me. She proved to be
+the landlady of the house in which Beljames lodged; and she
+brought an alarming message. The man was dying, and desired to
+see me. I went to him immediately.
+
+"Few words are best, when one has to write about one's own
+troubles.
+
+"Beljames had heard of the intended prosecution. How he had been
+made aware of it, death left him no time to tell me. The
+miserable wretch had poisoned himself--whether in terror of
+standing his trial, or in remorse of conscience, it is not any
+business of mine to decide. Most unluckily for me, he first
+ordered the doctor and the landlady out of the room; and then,
+when we two were alone, owned that he had purposely altered the
+course of the ship, and had stolen the diamonds.
+
+"To do him justice, he was eager to save me from suffering for
+his fault.
+
+"Having eased his mind by confession, he gave me the slip of
+paper (written in cipher) which you will find inclosed in this.
+'There is my note of the place where the diamonds are hidden,' he
+said. Among the many ignorant people who know nothing of ciphers,
+I am one--and I told him so. 'That's how I keep my secret,' he
+said; 'write from my dictation, and you shall know what it means.
+Lift me up first.' As I did it, he rolled his head to and fro,
+evidently in pain. But he managed to point to pen, ink, and
+paper, on a table hard by, on which his doctor had been writing.
+I left him for a moment, to pull the table nearer to the bed--and
+in that moment he groaned, and cried out for help. I ran to the
+room downstairs where the doctor was waiting. When we got back to
+him he was in convulsions. It was all over with Beljames.
+
+"The lawyers who are to defend me have tried to get Experts, as
+they call them, to interpret the cipher. The Experts have all
+failed. They will declare, if they are called as witnesses, that
+the signs on the paper are not according to any known rules, and
+are marks made at random, meaning nothing.
+
+"As for any statement, on my part, of the confession made to me,
+the law refuses to hear it, except from the mouth of a witness. I
+might prove that the ship's course was changed, contrary to my
+directions, after I had gone below to rest, if I could find the
+man who was steering at the time. God only knows where that man
+is.
+
+"On the other hand, the errors of my past life, and my being in
+debt, are circumstances dead against me. The lawyers seem to
+trust almost entirely in a famous counsel, whom they have engaged
+to defend me. For my own part, I go to my trial with little or no
+hope.
+
+"If the verdict is guilty, and if you have any regard left for my
+character, never rest until you have found somebody who can
+interpret these cursed signs. Do for me, I say, what I cannot do
+for myself. Recover the diamonds; and, when you restore them,
+show my owners this letter.
+
+"Kiss the children for me. I wish them, when they are old enough,
+to read this defense of myself and to know that their father, who
+loved them dearly, was an innocent man. My good brother will take
+care of you, for my sake. I have done.
+
+                                RODERICK WESTERFIELD."
+
+
+Mrs. Westerfield took up the cipher once more. She looked at it
+as if it were a living thing that defied her.
+
+"If I am able to read this gibberish," she decided, "I know what
+I'll do with the diamonds!"
+
+4.--The Garret.
+
+One year exactly after the fatal day of the trial, Mrs.
+Westerfield (secluded in the sanctuary of her bedroom) celebrated
+her release from the obligation of wearing widow's weeds.
+
+The conventional graduations in the outward expression of grief,
+which lead from black clothing to gray, formed no part of this
+afflicted lady's system of mourning. She laid her best blue
+walking dress and her new bonnet to match on the bed, and admired
+them to her heart's content. Her discarded garments were left on
+the floor. "Thank Heaven, I've done with you!" she said--and
+kicked her rusty mourning out of the way as she advanced to the
+fireplace to ring the bell.
+
+"Where is my little boy?" she asked, when the landlady entered
+the room.
+
+"He's down with me in the kitchen, ma'am; I'm teaching him to
+make a plum cake for himself. He's so happy! I hope you don't
+want him just now?"
+
+"Not the least in the world. I want you to take care of him while
+I am away. By-the-by, where's Syd?"
+
+The elder child (the girl) had been christened Sydney, in
+compliment to one of her father's female relatives. The name was
+not liked by her mother--who had shortened it to Syd, by way of
+leaving as little of it as possible. With a look at Mrs.
+Westerfield which expressed ill-concealed aversion, the landlady
+answered: "She's up in the lumber-room, poor child. She says you
+sent her there to be out of the way."
+
+"Ah, to be sure, I did."
+
+"There's no fireplace in the garret, ma'am. I'm afraid the little
+girl must be cold and lonely."
+
+It was useless to plead for Syd--Mrs. Westerfield was not
+listening. Her attention was absorbed by her own plump and pretty
+hands. She took a tiny file from the dressing-table, and put a
+few finishing touches to her nails. "Send me some hot water," she
+said; "I want to dress."
+
+The servant girl who carried the hot water upstairs was new to
+the ways of the house. After having waited on Mrs. Westerfield,
+she had been instructed by the kind-hearted landlady to go on to
+the top floor. "You will find a pretty little girl in the garret,
+all by herself. Say you are to bring her down to my room, as soon
+as her mamma has gone out."
+
+Mrs. Westerfield's habitual neglect of her eldest child was known
+to every person in the house. Even the new servant had heard of
+it. Interested by what she saw, on opening the garret door, she
+stopped on the threshold and looked in.
+
+The lumber in the room consisted of two rotten old trunks, a
+broken chair, and a dirty volume of sermons of the old-fashioned
+quarto size. The grimy ceiling, slanting downward to a cracked
+window, was stained with rain that had found its way through the
+roof. The faded wall-paper, loosened by damp, was torn away in
+some places, and bulged loose in others. There were holes in the
+skirting-board; and from one of them peeped the brightly timid
+eyes of the child's only living companion in the garret--a mouse,
+feeding on crumbs which she had saved from her breakfast.
+
+Syd looked up when the mouse darted back into its hole, on the
+opening of the door. "Lizzie! Lizzie!" she said, gravely, "you
+ought to have come in without making a noise. You have frightened
+away my youngest child."
+
+The good-natured servant burst out laughing. "Have you got a
+large family, miss?" she inquired, humoring the joke.
+
+Syd failed to see the joke. "Only two more," she answered as
+gravely as ever--and lifted up from the floor two miserable
+dolls, reduced to the last extremity of dirt and dilapidation.
+"My two eldest," this strange child resumed, setting up the dolls
+against one of the empty trunks. "The eldest is a girl, and her
+name is Syd. The other is a boy, untidy in his clothes, as you
+see. Their kind mamma forgives them when they are naughty, and
+buys ponies for them to ride on, and always has something nice
+for them to eat when they are hungry. Have you got a kind mamma,
+Lizzie? And are you very fond of her?"
+
+Those innocent allusions to the neglect which was the one sad
+experience of Syd's young life touched the servant's heart. A
+bygone time was present to her memory, when she too had been left
+without a playfellow to keep her company or a fire to warm her,
+and she had not endured it patiently.
+
+"Oh, my dear," she said, "your poor little arms are red with
+cold. Come to me and let me rub them."
+
+But Syd's bright imagination was a better protection against the
+cold than all the rubbing that the hands of a merciful woman
+could offer. "You are very kind, Lizzie," she answered. "I don't
+feel the cold when I am playing with my children. I am very
+careful to give them plenty of exercise, we are going to walk in
+the Park."
+
+She gave a hand to each of the dolls, and walked slowly round
+and round the miserable room, pointing out visionary persons of
+distinction and objects of interest. "Here's the queen, my dears,
+in her gilt coach, drawn by six horses. Do you see her scepter
+poking out of the carriage window? She governs the nation with
+that. Bow to the queen. And now look at the beautiful bright
+water. There's the island where the ducks live. Ducks are happy
+creatures. They have their own way in everything, and they're
+good to eat when they're dead. At least they used to be good,
+when we had nice dinners in papa's time. I try to amuse the poor
+little things, Lizzie. Their papa is dead. I'm obliged to be papa
+and mamma to them, both in one. Do you feel the cold, my dears?"
+She shivered as she questioned her imaginary children. "Now we
+are at home again," she said, and led the dolls to the empty
+fireplace. "Roaring fires always in _my_ house," cried the
+resolute little creature, rubbing her hands cheerfully before the
+bleak blank grate.
+
+Warm-hearted Lizzie could control herself no longer.
+
+"If the child would only make some complaint," she burst out, "it
+wouldn't be so dreadful! Oh, what a shame! what a shame!" she
+cried, to the astonishment of little Syd. "Come down, my dear, to
+the nice warm room where your brother is. Oh, your mother? I
+don't care if your mother sees us; I should like to give your
+mother a piece of my mind. There! I don't mean to frighten you;
+I'm one of your bad children--I fly into a passion. You carry the
+dolls and I'll carry _you_. Oh, how she shivers! Give us a kiss."
+
+Sympathy which expressed itself in this way was new to Syd. Her
+eyes opened wide in childish wonder--and suddenly closed again in
+childish terror, when her good friend the servant passed Mrs.
+Westerfield's door on the way downstairs. "If mamma bounces out
+on us," she whispered, "pretend we don't see her." The nice warm
+room received them in safety. Under no stress of circumstances
+had Mrs. Westerfield ever been known to dress herself in a hurry.
+A good half-hour more had passed before the house door was heard
+to bang--and the pleasant landlady, peeping through the window,
+said: "There she goes. Now, we'll enjoy ourselves!"
+
+5.--The Landlord.
+
+Mrs. Westerfield's destination was the public-house in which she
+had been once employed as a barmaid. Entering the place without
+hesitation, she sent in her card to the landlord. He opened the
+parlor door himself and invited her to walk in.
+
+"You wear well," he said, admiring her. "Have you come back here
+to be my barmaid again?"
+
+"Do you think I am reduced to that?" she answered.
+
+"Well, my dear, more unlikely things have happened. They tell me
+you depend for your income on Lord Le Basque--and his lordship's
+death was in the newspapers last week."
+
+"And his lordship's lawyers continue my allowance."
+
+Having smartly set the landlord right in those words, she had not
+thought it necessary to add that Lady Le Basque, continuing the
+allowance at her husband's request, had also notified that it
+would cease if Mrs. Westerfield married again.
+
+"You're a lucky woman," the landlord remarked. "Well, I'm glad to
+see you. What will you take to drink?"
+
+"Nothing, thank you. I want to know if you have heard anything
+lately of James Bellbridge?"
+
+The landlord was a popular person in his own circle--not
+accustomed to restrain himself when he saw his way to a joke.
+"Here's constancy!" he said. "She's sweet on James, after having
+jilted him twelve years ago!"
+
+Mrs. Westerfield replied with dignity. "I am accustomed to be
+treated respectfully," she replied. "I wish you good-morning."
+
+The easy landlord pressed her back into her chair. "Don't be a
+fool," he said; "James is in London--James is staying in my
+house. What do you think of that?"
+
+Mrs. Westerfield's bold gray eyes expressed eager curiosity and
+interest. "You don't mean that he is going to be barman here
+again?"
+
+"No such luck, my dear; he is a gentleman at large, who
+patronizes my house."
+
+Mrs. Westerfield went on with her questions.
+
+"Has he left America for good?"
+
+"Not he! James Bellbridge is going back to New York, to open a
+saloon (as they call it) in partnership with another man. He's in
+England, he says, on business. It's my belief that he wants money
+for this new venture on bad security. They're smart people in New
+York. His only chance of getting his bills discounted is to
+humbug his relations, down in the country."
+
+"When does he go to the country?"
+
+"He's there now."
+
+"When does he come back?"
+
+"You're determined to see him, it appears. He comes back
+to-morrow."
+
+"Is he married?"
+
+"Aha! now we're coming to the point. Make your mind easy. Plenty
+of women have set the trap for him, but he has not walked into it
+yet. Shall I give him your love?"
+
+"Yes," she said, coolly. "As much love as you please."
+
+"Meaning marriage?" the landlord inquired.
+
+"And money," Mrs. Westerfield added.
+
+"Lord Le Basque's money."
+
+"Lord Le Basque's money may go to the Devil!"
+
+"Hullo! Your language reminds me of the time when you were a
+barmaid. You don't mean to say you have had a fortune left you?"
+
+"I do! Will you give a message to James?"
+
+"I'll do anything for a lady with a fortune."
+
+"Tell him to come and drink tea with his old sweetheart tomorrow,
+at six o'clock."
+
+"He won't do it."
+
+"He will."
+
+With that difference of opinion, they parted.
+
+6.--The Brute.
+
+To-morrow came--and Mrs. Westerfield's faithful James justified
+her confidence in him.
+
+"Oh, Jemmy, how glad I am to see you! You dear, dear fellow. I'm
+yours at last."
+
+"That depends, my lady, on whether I want you. Let go of my
+neck."
+
+The man who entered this protest against imprisonment in the arms
+of a fine woman, was one of the human beings who are grown to
+perfection on English soil. He had the fat face, the pink
+complexion, the hard blue eyes, the scanty yellow hair, the smile
+with no meaning in it, the tremendous neck and shoulders, the
+mighty fists and feet, which are seen in complete combination in
+England only. Men of this breed possess a nervous system without
+being aware of it; suffer affliction without feeling it; exercise
+courage without a sense of danger; marry without love; eat and
+drink without limit; and sink (big as they are), when disease
+attacks them, without an effort to live.
+
+Mrs. Westerfield released her guest's bull-neck at the word of
+command. It was impossible not to submit to him--he was so
+brutal. Impossible not to admire him--he was so big.
+
+"Have you no love left for me?" was all she ventured to say.
+
+He took the reproof good-humoredly. "Love?" he repeated. "Come! I
+like that--after throwing me over for a man with a handle to his
+name. Which am I to call you: 'Mrs?' or 'My Lady'?"
+
+"Call me your own. What is there to laugh at, Jemmy? You used to
+be fond of me; you would never have gone to America, when I
+married Westerfield, if I hadn't been dear to you. Oh, if I'm
+sure of anything, I'm sure of that! You wouldn't bear malice,
+dear, if you only knew how cruelly I have been disappointed."
+
+He suddenly showed an interest in what she was saying: the brute
+became cheery and confidential. "So he made you a bad husband,
+did he? Up with his fist and knocked you down, I daresay, if the
+truth was known?"
+
+"You're all in the wrong, dear. He would have been a good husband
+if I had cared about him. I never cared about anybody but you. It
+wasn't Westerfield who tempted me to say Yes."
+
+"That's a lie."
+
+"No, indeed it isn't."
+
+"Then why did you marry him?"
+
+"When I married him, Jemmy, there was a prospect--oh, how could I
+resist it? Think of being one of the Le Basques! Held in honor,
+to the end of my life, by that noble family, whether my husband
+lived or died!"
+
+To the barman's ears, this sounded like sheer nonsense. His
+experience in the public-house suggested an explanation. "I say,
+my girl, have you been drinking?"
+
+Mrs. Westerfield's first impulse led her to rise and point
+indignantly to the door. He had only to look at her--and she sat
+down again a tamed woman. "You don't understand how the chance
+tempted me," she answered, gently.
+
+"What chance do you mean?"
+
+"The chance, dear, of being a lord's mother."
+
+He was still puzzled, but he lowered his tone. The true-born
+Briton bowed by instinct before the woman who had jilted him,
+when she presented herself in the character of a lord's mother.
+"How do you make that out, Maria?" he asked politely.
+
+She drew her chair nearer to him, when he called her by her
+Christian name for the first time.
+
+"When Westerfield was courting me," she said, "his brother (my
+lord) was a bachelor. A lady--if one can call such a creature a
+lady!--was living under his protection. He told Westerfield he
+was very fond of her, and he hated the idea of getting married.
+'If your wife's first child turns out to be a son,' he said,
+'there is an heir to the title and estates, and I may go on as I
+am now.' We were married a month afterward--and when my first
+child was born it was a girl. I leave you to judge what the
+disappointment was! My lord (persuaded, as I suspect, by the
+woman I mentioned just now) ran the risk of waiting another year,
+and a year afterward, rather than be married. Through all that
+time, I had no other child or prospect of a child. His lordship
+was fairly driven into taking a wife. Ah, how I hate her! _Their_
+first child was a boy--a big, bouncing, healthy brute of a boy!
+And six months afterward, my poor little fellow was born. Only
+think of it! And tell me, Jemmy, don't I deserve to be a happy
+woman, after suffering such a dreadful disappointment as that? Is
+it true that you're going back to America?"
+
+"Quite true."
+
+"Take me back with you."
+
+"With a couple of children?"
+
+"No. Only with one. I can dispose of the other in England. Wait a
+little before you say No. Do you want money?"
+
+"You couldn't help me, if I did."
+
+"Marry me, and I can help you to a fortune."
+
+He eyed her attentively and saw that she was in earnest. "What do
+you call a fortune?" he asked.
+
+"Five thousand pounds," she answered.
+
+His eyes opened; his mouth opened; he scratched his head. Even
+his impenetrable nature proved to be capable of receiving a
+shock. Five thousand pounds! He asked faintly for "a drop of
+brandy."
+
+She had a bottle of brandy ready for him.
+
+"You look quite overcome," she said.
+
+He was too deeply interested in the restorative influence of the
+brandy to take any notice of this remark. When he had recovered
+himself he was not disposed to believe in the five thousand
+pounds.
+
+"Where's the proof of it?" he said, sternly.
+
+She produced her husband's letter. "Did you read the Trial of
+Westerfield for casting away his ship?" she asked.
+
+"I heard of it."
+
+"Will you look at this letter?"
+
+"Is it long?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then suppose you read it to me."
+
+He listened with the closest attention while she read. The
+question of stealing the diamonds (if they could only be found)
+did not trouble either of them. It was a settled question, by
+tacit consent on both sides. But the value in money of the
+precious stones suggested a doubt that still weighed on his mind.
+
+"How do you know they're worth five thousand pounds?" he
+inquired.
+
+"You dear old stupid! Doesn't Westerfield himself say so in his
+letter?"
+
+"Read that bit again."
+
+She read it again: "After the two calamities of the loss of the
+ship, and the disappearance of the diamonds--these last being
+valued at five thousand pounds--I returned to England."
+
+Satisfied so far, he wanted to look at the cipher next. She
+handed it to him with a stipulation: "Yours, Jemmy, on the day
+when you marry me."
+
+He put the slip of paper into his pocket. "Now I've got it," he
+said, "suppose I keep it?"
+
+A woman who has been barmaid at a public-house is a woman not
+easily found at the end of her resources.
+
+"In that case," she curtly remarked, "I should first call in the
+police, and then telegraph to my husband's employers in
+Liverpool."
+
+He handed the cipher back. "I was joking," he said.
+
+"So was I," she answered.
+
+They looked at each other. They were made for each other--and
+they both felt it. At the same time, James kept his own interests
+steadily in view. He stated the obvious objection to the cipher.
+Experts had already tried to interpret the signs, and had failed.
+
+"Quite true," she added, "but other people may succeed."
+
+"How are you to find them?"
+
+"Leave me to try. Will you give me a fortnight from to-day?"
+
+"All right. Anything else?"
+
+"One thing more. Get the marriage license at once."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"To show that you are in earnest."
+
+He burst out laughing. "It mightn't be much amiss," he said, "if
+I took you back with me to America; you're the sort of woman we
+want in our new saloon. I'll get the license. Good-night."
+
+As he rose to go, there was a soft knock at the door. A little
+girl, in a shabby frock, ventured to show herself in the room.
+
+"What do you want here?" her mother asked sharply.
+
+Syd held out a small thin hand, with a letter in it, which
+represented her only excuse. Mrs. Westerfield read the letter,
+and crumpled it up in her pocket. "One of your secrets?" James
+asked. "Anything about the diamonds, for instance?"
+
+"Wait till you are my husband," she said, "and then you may be as
+inquisitive as you please." Her amiable sweetheart's guess had
+actually hit the mark. During the year that had passed, she too
+had tried her luck among the Experts, and had failed. Having
+recently heard of a foreign interpreter of ciphers, she had
+written to ask his terms. The reply (just received) not only
+estimated his services at an extravagantly high rate, but asked
+cautious questions which it was not convenient to answer. Another
+attempt had been made to discover the mystery of the cipher, and
+made in vain.
+
+James Bellbridge had his moments of good-humor, and was on those
+rare occasions easily amused. He eyed the child with
+condescending curiosity. "Looks half starved," he said--as if he
+were considering the case of a stray cat. "Hollo, there! Buy a
+bit of bread." He tossed a penny to Syd as she left the room; and
+took the opportunity of binding his bargain with Syd's mother.
+"Mind! if I take you to New York, I'm not going to be burdened
+with both your children. Is that girl the one you leave behind
+you?"
+
+Mrs. Westerfield smiled sweetly, and answered: "Yes, dear."
+
+7.--The Cipher.
+
+An advertisement in the newspapers, addressed to persons skilled
+in the interpretation of ciphers, now represented Mrs.
+Westerfield's only chance of discovering where the diamonds were
+hidden. The first answer that she received made some amends for
+previous disappointment. It offered references to gentlemen,
+whose names were in themselves a sufficient guarantee. She
+verified the references nevertheless, and paid a visit to her
+correspondent on the same day.
+
+His personal appearance was not in his favor--he was old and
+dirty, infirm and poor. His mean room was littered with shabby
+books. None of the ordinary courtesies of life seemed to be known
+to him; he neither wished Mrs. Westerfield good-morning nor asked
+her to take a seat. When she attempted to enter into explanations
+relating to her errand, he rudely interrupted her.
+
+"Show me your cipher," he said; "I don't promise to study it
+unless I find it worth my while."
+
+Mrs. Westerfield was alarmed.
+
+"Do you mean that you want a large sum of money?" she asked.
+
+"I mean that I don't waste my time on easy ciphers invented by
+fools."
+
+She laid the slip of paper on his desk.
+
+"Waste your time on _that_," she said satirically, "and see how
+you like it!"
+
+He examined it--first with his bleared red-rimmed eyes; then with
+a magnifying-glass. The only expression of opinion that escaped
+him was indicated by his actions. He shut up his book, and
+gloated over the signs and characters before him. On a sudden he
+looked at Mrs. Westerfield. "How did you come by this?" he asked.
+
+"That's no business of yours."
+
+"In other words, you have reasons of your own for not answering
+my question?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Drawing his own inferences from that reply, he showed his three
+last-left yellow teeth in a horrid grin. "I understand!" he said,
+speaking to himself. He looked at the cipher once more, and put
+another question: "Have you got a copy of this?"
+
+It had not occurred to her to take a copy. He rose and pointed to
+his empty chair. His opinion of the cipher was, to all
+appearance, forced to express itself by the discovery that there
+was no copy.
+
+"Do you know what might happen?" he asked. "The only cipher that
+has puzzled me for the last ten years might be lost--or
+stolen--or burned if there was a fire in the house. You deserve
+to be punished for your carelessness. Make the copy yourself."
+
+This desirable suggestion (uncivilly as it was expressed) had its
+effect upon Mrs. Westerfield. Her marriage depended on that
+precious slip of paper. She was confirmed in her opinion that
+this very disagreeable man might nevertheless be a man to be
+trusted.
+
+"Shall you be long in finding out what it means?" she asked when
+her task was completed.
+
+He carefully compared the copy with the original--and then he
+replied:
+
+"Days may pass before I can find the clew; I won't attempt it
+unless you give me a week."
+
+She pleaded for a shorter interval. He coolly handed back her
+papers; the original and the copy.
+
+"Try somebody else," he suggested--and opened his book again.
+Mrs. Westerfield yielded with the worst possible grace. In
+granting him the week of delay, she approached the subject of his
+fee for the second time. "How much will it cost me?" she
+inquired.
+
+"I'll tell you when I've done."
+
+"That won't do! I must know the amount first."
+
+He handed her back her papers for the second time. Mrs.
+Westerfield's experience of poverty had never been the experience
+of such independence as this. In sheer bewilderment, she yielded
+again. He took back the original cipher, and locked it up in his
+desk. "Call here this day week," he said--and returned to his
+book.
+
+"You are not very polite," she told him, on leaving the room.
+
+"At any rate," he answered, "I don't interrupt people when they
+are reading."
+
+The week passed.
+
+Repeating her visit, Mrs. Westerfield found him still seated at
+his desk, still surrounded by his books, still careless of the
+polite attentions that he owed to a lady.
+
+"Well?" she asked, "have you earned your money?"
+
+"I have found the clew."
+
+"What is it?" she burst out. "Tell me the substance. I can't wait
+to read."
+
+He went on impenetrably with what he had to say. "But there are
+some minor combinations, which I have still to discover to my own
+satisfaction. I want a few days more."
+
+She positively refused to comply with this request. "Write down
+the substance of it," she repeated, "and tell me what I owe you."
+
+He handed her back her cipher for the third time.
+
+The woman who could have kept her temper, under such provocation
+as this, may be found when the mathematician is found who can
+square the circle, or the inventor who can discover perpetual
+motion. With a furious look, Mrs. Westerfield expressed her
+opinion of the philosopher in two words: "You brute!" She failed
+to produce the slightest impression on him.
+
+"My work," he proceeded, "must be well done or not done at all.
+This is Saturday, eleventh of the month. We will say the evening
+of Wednesday next."
+
+Mrs. Westerfield sufficiently controlled herself to be able to
+review her engagements for the coming week. On Thursday, the
+delay exacted by the marriage license would expire, and the
+wedding might take place. On Friday, the express train conveyed
+passengers to Liverpool, to be in time for the departure of the
+steamer for New York on Saturday morning. Having made these
+calculations, she asked, with sulky submission, if she was
+expected to call again on the Wednesday evening.
+
+"No. Leave me your name and address. I will send you the cipher,
+interpreted, at eight o'clock."
+
+Mrs. Westerfield laid one of her visiting cards on his desk, and
+left him.
+
+8.--The Diamonds.
+
+The new week was essentially a week of events.
+
+On the Monday morning, Mrs. Westerfield and her faithful James
+had their first quarrel. She took the liberty of reminding him
+that it was time to give notice of the marriage at the church,
+and to secure berths in the steamer for herself and her son.
+Instead of answering one way or another, James asked how the
+Expert was getting on.
+
+"Has your old man found out where the diamonds are?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"Then we'll wait till he does."
+
+"Do you believe my word?" Mrs. Westerfield asked curtly.
+
+James Bellbridge answered, with Roman brevity, "No."
+
+This was an insult; Mrs. Westerfield expressed her sense of it.
+She rose, and pointed to the door. "Go back to America, as soon
+as you please," she said; "and find the money you want--if you
+can."
+
+As a proof that she was in earnest she took her copy of the
+cipher out of the bosom of her dress, and threw it into the fire.
+"The original is safe in my old man's keeping," she added. "Leave
+the room."
+
+James rose with suspicious docility, and walked out, having his
+own private ends in view.
+
+Half an hour later, Mrs. Westerfield's old man was interrupted
+over his work by a person of bulky and blackguard appearance,
+whom he had never seen before.
+
+The stranger introduced himself as a gentleman who was engaged to
+marry Mrs. Westerfield: he requested (not at all politely) to be
+permitted to look at the cipher. He was asked if he had brought a
+written order to that effect, signed by the lady herself. Mr.
+Bellbridge, resting his fists on the writing-table, answered that
+he had come to look at the cipher on his own sole responsibility,
+and that he insisted on seeing it immediately. "Allow me to show
+you something else first," was the reply he received to this
+assertion of his will and pleasure. "Do you know a loaded pistol,
+sir, when you see it?" The barrel of the pistol approached within
+three inches of the barman's big head as he leaned over the
+writing-table. For once in his life he was taken by surprise. It
+had never occurred to him that a professed interpreter of ciphers
+might sometimes be trusted with secrets which placed him in a
+position of danger, and might therefore have wisely taken
+measures to protect himself. No power of persuasion is comparable
+to the power possessed by a loaded pistol. James left the room;
+and expressed his sentiments in language which has not yet found
+its way into any English Dictionary.
+
+But he had two merits, when his temper was in a state of repose.
+He knew when he was beaten; and he thoroughly appreciated the
+value of the diamonds. When Mrs. Westerfield saw him again, on
+the next day, he appeared with undeniable claims on her mercy.
+Notice of the marriage had been received at the church; and a
+cabin had been secured for her on board the steamer.
+
+Her prospects being thus settled, to her own satisfaction, Mrs.
+Westerfield was at liberty to make her arrangements for the
+desertion of poor little Syd.
+
+The person on whose assistance she could rely was an unmarried
+elder sister, distinguished as proprietor of a cheap girls'
+school in one of the suburbs of London. This lady--known to local
+fame as Miss Wigger--had already proposed to take Syd into
+training as a pupil teacher. "I'll force the child on," Miss
+Wigger promised, "till she can earn her board and lodging by
+taking my lowest class. When she gets older she will replace my
+regular governess, and I shall save the salary."
+
+With this proposal waiting for a reply, Mrs. Westerfield had only
+to inform her sister that it was accepted. "Come here," she
+wrote, "on Friday next, at any time before two o'clock, and Syd
+shall be ready for you. P.S.--I am to be married again on
+Thursday, and start for America with my husband and my boy by
+next Saturday's steamer."
+
+The letter was posted; and the mother's anxious mind was, to use
+her own phrase, relieved of another worry.
+
+As the hour of eight drew near on Wednesday evening, Mrs.
+Westerfield's anxiety forced her to find relief in action of some
+kind. She opened the door of her sitting-room and listened on the
+stairs. It still wanted for a few minutes to eight o'clock, when
+there was a ring at the house-bell. She ran down to open the
+door. The servant happened to be in the hall, and answered the
+bell. The next moment, the door was suddenly closed again.
+
+"Anybody there?" Mrs. Westerfield asked.
+
+"No, ma'am."
+
+This seemed strange. Had the old wretch deceived her, after all?
+"Look in the letter-box," she called out. The servant obeyed, and
+found a letter. Mrs. Westerfield tore it open, standing on the
+stairs. It contained half a sheet of common note-paper. The
+interpretation of the cipher was written on it in these words:
+
+"Remember Number 12, Purbeck Road, St. John's Wood. Go to the
+summer-house in the back garden. Count to the fourth plank in the
+floor, reckoning from the side wall on the right as you enter the
+summer-house. Prize up the plank. Look under the mould and
+rubbish. Find the diamonds."
+
+Not a word of explanation accompanied these lines. Neither had
+the original cipher been returned. The strange old man had earned
+his money, and had not attended to receive it--had not even sent
+word where or how it might be paid! Had he delivered his letter
+himself? He (or his messenger) had gone before the house-door
+could be opened!
+
+A sudden suspicion of him turned her cold. Had he stolen the
+diamonds? She was on the point of sending for a cab, and driving
+it to his lodgings, when James came in, eager to know if the
+interpretation had arrived.
+
+Keeping her suspicions to herself, she merely informed him that
+the interpretation was in her hands. He at once asked to see it.
+She refused to show it to him until he had made her his wife.
+"Put a chisel in your pocket, when we go to church, to-morrow
+morning," was the one hint she gave him. As thoroughly worthy of
+each other as ever, the betrothed lovers distrusted each other to
+the last.
+
+At eleven o'clock the next morning they were united in the bonds
+of wedlock; the landlord and the landlady of the public-house in
+which they had both served being the only witnesses present. The
+children were not permitted to see the ceremony. On leaving the
+church door, the married pair began their honeymoon by driving to
+St. John's Wood.
+
+A dirty printed notice, in a broken window, announced that the
+House was To Let; and a sour-tempered woman informed them that
+they were free to look at the rooms.
+
+The bride was in the best of humors. She set the bridegroom the
+example of keeping up appearances by examining the dilapidated
+house first. This done, she said sweetly to the person in charge,
+"May we look at the garden?"
+
+The woman made a strange answer to this request. "That's
+curious," she said.
+
+James interfered for the first time. "What's curious?" he asked
+roughly.
+
+"Among all the idle people who have come here, at one time or
+another, to see this house." the woman said, "only two have
+wanted to look at the garden."
+
+James turned on his heel, and made for the summer-house, leaving
+it to his wife to pursue the subject or not as she pleased. She
+did pursue the subject.
+
+"I am one of the persons, of course," she said. "Who is the
+other?"
+
+"An old man came on Monday."
+
+The bride's pleasant smile vanished.
+
+"What sort of person was he?" she asked.
+
+The sour-tempered woman became sourer than ever.
+
+"Oh, how can I tell! A brute. There!"
+
+"A brute!" The very words which the new Mrs. Bellbridge had
+herself used when the Expert had irritated her. With serious
+misgivings, she, too, turned her steps in the direction of the
+garden.
+
+James had already followed her instructions and used his chisel.
+The plank lay loose on the floor. With both his big hands he
+rapidly cleared away the mould and the rubbish. In a few minutes
+the hiding-place was laid bare.
+
+They looked into it. They looked at each other. There was the
+empty hole, telling its own story. The diamonds were gone.
+
+
+9.--The Mother.
+
+
+Mrs. Bellbridge eyed her husband, prepared for a furious outbreak
+of rage. He stood silent, staring stupidly straight before him.
+The shock that had fallen on his dull brain had stunned it. For
+the time, he was a big idiot--speechless, harmless, helpless.
+
+She put back the rubbish, and replaced the plank, and picked up
+the chisel. "Come, James," she said; "pull yourself together." It
+was useless to speak to him. She took his arm and led him out to
+the cab that was waiting at the door.
+
+The driver, helping him to get in, noticed a piece of paper lying
+on the front seat. Advertisements, seeking publicity under all
+possible circumstances, are occasionally sent flying into the
+open windows of vehicles. The driver was about to throw the paper
+away, when Mrs. Bellbridge (seeing it on the other side) took it
+out of his hand. "It isn't print," she said; "it's writing." A
+closer examination showed that the writing was addressed to
+herself. Her correspondent must have followed her to the church,
+as well as to the house in St. John's Wood. He distinguished her
+by the name which she had changed that morning, under the
+sanction of the clergy and the law.
+
+This was what she read: "Don't trouble yourself, madam, about the
+diamonds. You have made a mistake--you have employed the wrong
+man."
+
+Those words--and no more. Enough, surely, to justify the
+conclusion that he had stolen the diamonds. Was it worth while to
+drive to his lodgings? They tried the experiment. The Expert had
+gone away on business--nobody knew where.
+
+The newspaper came as usual on Friday morning. To Mrs.
+Bellbridge's amazement it set the question of the theft at rest,
+on the highest authority. An article appeared, in a conspicuous
+position, thus expressed:
+
+"Another of the many proofs that truth is stranger than fiction
+has just occurred at Liverpool. A highly respected firm of
+shipwreckers in that city received a strange letter at the
+beginning of the present week. Premising that he had some
+remarkable circumstances to communicate, the writer of the letter
+entered abruptly on the narrative which follows: A friend of
+his--connected with literature--had, it appeared, noticed a
+lady's visiting card on his desk, and had been reminded by it (in
+what way it was not necessary to explain) of a criminal case
+which had excited considerable public interest at the time; viz.,
+the trial of Captain Westerfield for willfully casting away a
+ship under his command. Never having heard of the trial, the
+writer, at his friend's suggestion, consulted a file of
+newspapers--discovered the report--and became aware, for the
+first time, that a collection of Brazilian diamonds, consigned to
+the Liverpool firm, was missing from the wrecked vessel when she
+had been boarded by the salvage party, and had not been found
+since. Events, which it was impossible for him to mention (seeing
+that doing so would involve a breach of confidence placed in him
+in his professional capacity), had revealed to his knowledge a
+hiding-place in which these same diamonds, in all probability,
+were concealed. This circumstance had left him no alternative, as
+an honest man, but to be beforehand with the persons, who (as he
+believed) contemplated stealing the precious stones. He had,
+accordingly, taken them under his protection, until they were
+identified and claimed by the rightful owners. In now appealing
+to these gentlemen, he stipulated that the claim should be set
+forth in writing, addressed to him under initials at a
+post-office in London. If the lost property was identified to his
+satisfaction, he would meet--at a specified place and on a
+certain day and hour--a person accredited by the firm and would
+personally restore the diamonds, without claiming (or consenting
+to receive) a reward. The conditions being complied with, this
+remarkable interview took place; the writer of the letter,
+described as an infirm old man very poorly dressed, fulfilled his
+engagement, took his receipt, and walked away without even
+waiting to be thanked. It is only an act of justice to add that
+the diamonds were afterward counted, and not one of them was
+missing."
+
+Miserable, deservedly-miserable married pair. The stolen fortune,
+on which they had counted, had slipped through their fingers. The
+berths in the steamer for New York had been taken and paid for.
+James had married a woman with nothing besides herself to bestow
+on him, except an incumbrance in the shape of a boy.
+
+Late on the fatal wedding-day his first idea, when he was himself
+again after the discovery in the summer-house, was to get back
+his passage-money, to abandon his wife and his stepson, and to
+escape to America in a French steamer. He went to the office of
+the English company, and offered the places which he had taken
+for sale. The season of the year was against him; the
+passenger-traffic to America was at its lowest ebb, and profits
+depended upon freights alone.
+
+If he still contemplated deserting his wife, he must also submit
+to sacrifice his money. The other alternative was (as he
+expressed it himself) to "have his pennyworth for his penny, and
+to turn his family to good account in New York." He had not quite
+decided what to do when he got home again on the evening of his
+marriage.
+
+At that critical moment in her life the bride was equal to the
+demand on her resources.
+
+If she was foolish enough to allow James to act on his natural
+impulses, there were probably two prospects before her. In one
+state of his temper, he might knock her down. In another state of
+his temper, he might leave her behind him. Her only hope of
+protecting herself, in either case, was to tame the bridegroom.
+In his absence, she wisely armed herself with the most
+irresistible fascinations of her sex. Never yet had he seen her
+dressed as she was dressed when he came home. Never yet had her
+magnificent eyes looked at him as they looked now. Emotions for
+which he was not prepared overcame this much injured man; he
+stared at the bride in helpless surprise. That inestimable moment
+of weakness was all Mrs. Bellbridge asked for. Bewildered by his
+own transformation, James found himself reading the newspaper the
+next morning sentimentally, with his arm round his wife's waist.
+
+
+
+By a refinement of cruelty, not one word had been said to prepare
+little Syd for the dreary change that was now close at hand in
+her young life. The poor child had seen the preparations for
+departure, and had tried to imitate her mother in packing up. She
+had collected her few morsels of darned and ragged clothing, and
+had gone upstairs to put them into one of the dilapidated old
+trunks in the garret play ground, when the servant was sent to
+bring her back to the sitting-room. There, enthroned in an
+easy-chair, sat a strange lady; and there, hiding behind the
+chair in undisguised dislike of the visitor, was her little
+brother Roderick. Syd looked timidly at her mother; and her
+mother said:
+
+"Here is your aunt."
+
+The personal appearance of Miss Wigger might have suggested a
+modest distrust of his own abilities to Lavater, when that
+self-sufficient man wrote his famous work on Physiognomy.
+Whatever betrayal of her inner self her face might have
+presented, in the distant time when she was young, was now
+completely overlaid by a surface of a flabby fat which, assisted
+by green spectacles, kept the virtues (or vices) of this woman's
+nature a profound secret until she opened her lips. When she used
+her voice, she let out the truth. Nobody could hear her speak,
+and doubt for a moment that she was an inveterately ill-natured
+woman.
+
+"Make your curtsey, child!" said Miss Wigger. Nature had so toned
+her voice as to make it worthy of the terrors of her face. But
+for her petticoats, it would have been certainly taken for the
+voice of a man.
+
+The child obeyed, trembling.
+
+"You are to go away with me," the school-mistress proceeded, "and
+to be taught to make yourself useful under my roof."
+
+Syd seemed to be incapable of understanding the fate that was in
+store for her. She sheltered herself behind her merciless mother.
+"I'm going away with you, mamma," she said--"with you and Rick."
+
+Her mother took her by the shoulders, and pushed her across the
+room to her aunt.
+
+The child looked at the formidable female creature with the man's
+voice and the green spectacles.
+
+"You belong to me," said Miss Wigger, by way of encouragement,
+"and I have come to take you away." At those dreadful words,
+terror shook little Syd from head to foot. She fell on her knees
+with a cry of misery that might have melted the heart of a
+savage. "Oh, mamma, mamma, don't leave me behind! What have I
+done to deserve it? Oh, pray, pray, pray have some pity on me!"
+
+Her mother was as selfish and as cruel a woman as ever lived. But
+even her hard heart felt faintly the influence of the most
+intimate and most sacred of all human relationships. Her florid
+cheeks turned pale. She hesitated.
+
+Miss Wigger marked (through her own green medium) that moment of
+maternal indecision--and saw that it was time to assert her
+experience as an instructress of youth.
+
+"Leave it to me," she said to her sister. "You never did know,
+and you never will know, how to manage children."
+
+She advanced. The child threw herself shrieking on the floor.
+Miss Wigger's long arms caught her up--held her--shook her. "Be
+quiet, you imp!" It was needless to tell her to be quiet. Syd's
+little curly head sank on the schoolmistress's shoulder. She was
+carried into exile without a word or a cry--she had fainted.
+
+
+10.--The School.
+
+Time's march moves slowly, where weary lives languish in dull
+places.
+
+Dating from one unkempt and unacknowledged birthday to another,
+Sydney Westerfield had attained the sixth year of her martyrdom
+at School. In that long interval no news of her mother, her
+brother, or her stepfather had reached England; she had received
+no letter, she had not even heard a report. Without friends, and
+without prospects, Roderick Westerfield's daughter was, in the
+saddest sense of the word, alone in the world.
+
+
+
+The hands of the ugly old clock in the school-room were
+approaching the time when the studies of the morning would come
+to an end. Wearily waiting for their release, the scholars saw an
+event happen which was a novelty in their domestic experience.
+The maid-of-all-work audaciously put her head in at the door, and
+interrupted Miss Wigger conducting the education of the
+first-class.
+
+"If you please, miss, there's a gentleman--"
+
+Having uttered these introductory words, she was reduced to
+silence by the tremendous voice of her mistress.
+
+"Haven't I forbidden you to come here in school hours? Go away
+directly!"
+
+Hardened by a life of drudgery, under conditions of perpetual
+scolding, the servant stood her ground, and recovered the use of
+her tongue.
+
+"There's a gentleman in the drawing-room," she persisted. Miss
+Wigger tried to interrupt her again. "And here's his card!" she
+shouted, in a voice that was the louder of the two.
+
+Being a mortal creature, the schoolmistress was accessible to the
+promptings of curiosity. She snatched the card out of the girl's
+hand.
+
+_Mr. Herbert Linley, Mount Morven, Perthshire._ "I don't know
+this person," Miss Wigger declared. "You wretch, have you let a
+thief into the house?"
+
+"A gentleman, if ever I see one yet," the servant asserted.
+
+"Hold your tongue! Did he ask for me? Do you hear?"
+
+"You told me to hold my tongue. No; he didn't ask for you."
+
+"Then who did he want to see?"
+
+"It's on his card."
+
+Miss Wigger referred to the card again, and discovered (faintly
+traced in pencil) these words: "To see Miss S.W."
+
+The schoolmistress instantly looked at Miss Westerfield. Miss
+Westerfield rose from her place at the head of her class.
+
+The pupils, astonished at this daring act, all looked at the
+teacher--their natural enemy, appointed to supply them with
+undesired information derived from hated books. They saw one of
+Mother Nature's favorite daughters; designed to be the darling of
+her family, and the conqueror of hearts among men of all tastes
+and ages. But Sydney Westerfield had lived for six weary years in
+the place of earthly torment, kept by Miss Wigger under the name
+of a school. Every budding beauty, except the unassailable beauty
+of her eyes and her hair, had been nipped under the frosty
+superintendence of her maternal aunt. Her cheeks were hollow, her
+delicate lips were pale; her shabby dress lay flat over her
+bosom. Observant people, meeting her when she was out walking
+with the girls, were struck by her darkly gentle eyes, and by the
+patient sadness of her expression. "What a pity!" they said to
+each other. "She would be a pretty girl, if she didn't look so
+wretched and so thin."
+
+At a loss to understand the audacity of her teacher in rising
+before the class was dismissed, Miss Wigger began by asserting
+her authority. She did in two words: "Sit down!"
+
+"I wish to explain, ma'am."
+
+"Sit down."
+
+"I beg, Miss Wigger, that you will allow me to explain."
+
+"Sydney Westerfield, you are setting the worst possible example
+to your class. I shall see this man myself. _Will_ you sit down?"
+
+Pale already, Sydney turned paler still. She obeyed the word of
+command--to the delight of the girls of her class. It was then
+within ten minutes of the half hour after twelve--when the pupils
+were dismissed to the playground while the cloth was laid for dinner.
+What use would the teacher make of that half hour of freedom?
+
+In the meanwhile Miss Wigger had entered her drawing-room. With
+the slightest possible inclination of her head, she eyed the
+stranger through her green spectacles. Even under that
+disadvantage his appearance spoke for itself. The servant's
+estimate of him was beyond dispute. Mr. Herbert Linley's good
+breeding was even capable of suppressing all outward expression
+of the dismay that he felt, on finding himself face to face with
+the formidable person who had received him.
+
+"What is your business, if you please?" Miss Wigger began.
+
+Men, animals, and buildings wear out with years, and submit to
+their hard lot. Time only meets with flat contradiction when he
+ventures to tell a woman that she is growing old. Herbert Linley
+had rashly anticipated that the "young lady," whom it was the
+object of his visit to see, would prove to be young in the
+literal sense of the word. When he and Miss Wigger stood face to
+face, if the door had been set open for him, he would have left
+the house with the greatest pleasure.
+
+"I have taken the liberty of calling," he said, "in answer to an
+advertisement. May I ask"--he paused, and took out a newspaper
+from the pocket of his overcoat--"If I have the honor of speaking
+to the lady who is mentioned here?"
+
+He opened the newspaper, and pointed to the advertisement.
+
+Miss Wigger's eyes rested--not on the passage indicated, but on
+the visitor's glove. It fitted him to such perfection that it
+suggested the enviable position in life which has gloves made to
+order. He politely pointed again. Still inaccessible to the
+newspaper, Miss Wigger turned her spectacles next to the front
+window of the room, and discovered a handsome carriage waiting at
+the door. (Money evidently in the pockets of those beautiful
+trousers, worthy of the gloves!) As patiently as ever, Linley
+pointed for the third time, and drew Miss Wigger's attention in
+the right direction at last. She read the advertisement.
+
+
+"A Young Lady wishes to be employed in the education of a little
+girl. Possessing but few accomplishments, and having been only a
+junior teacher at a school, she offers her services on trial,
+leaving it to her employer to pay whatever salary she may be
+considered to deserve, if she obtains a permanent engagement.
+Apply by letter, to S.W., 14, Delta Gardens, N.E."
+
+"Most impertinent," said Miss Wigger.
+
+Mr. Linley looked astonished.
+
+"I say, most impertinent!" Miss Wigger repeated.
+
+Mr. Linley attempted to pacify this terrible woman. "It's very
+stupid of me," he said; "I am afraid I don't quite understand
+you."
+
+"One of my teachers has issued an advertisement, and has referred
+to My address, without first consulting Me. Have I made myself
+understood, sir?" She looked at the carriage again, when she
+called him "sir."
+
+Not even Linley's capacity for self-restraint could repress the
+expression of relief, visible in his brightening face, when he
+discovered that the lady of the advertisement and the lady who
+terrified him were two different persons.
+
+"Have I made myself understood?" Miss Wigger repeated.
+
+"Perfectly, madam. At the same time, I am afraid I must own that
+the advertisement has produced a favorable impression on me."
+
+"I fail entirely to see why," Miss Wigger remarked.
+
+"There is surely," Linley repeated, "something straightforward--I
+might almost say, something innocent--in the manner in which the
+writer expresses herself. She seems to be singularly modest on
+the subject of her own attainments, and unusually considerate of
+the interests of others. I hope you will permit me--?"
+
+Before he could add, "to see the young lady," the door was
+opened: a young lady entered the room.
+
+Was she the writer of the advertisement? He felt sure of it, for
+no better reason than this: the moment he looked at her she
+interested him. It was an interest new to Linley, in his
+experience of himself There was nothing to appeal to his
+admiration (by way of his senses) in the pale, worn young
+creature who stood near the door, resigned beforehand to whatever
+reception she might meet with. The poor teacher made him think of
+his happy young wife at home--of his pretty little girl, the
+spoiled child of the household. He looked at Sydney Westerfield
+with a heartfelt compassion which did honor to them both.
+
+"What do you mean by coming here?" Miss Wigger inquired.
+
+She answered gently, but not timidly. The tone in which the
+mistress had spoken had evidently not shaken her resolution, so
+far.
+
+"I wish to know," she said, "if this gentleman desires to see me
+on the subject of my advertisement?"
+
+"Your advertisement?" Miss Wigger repeated. "Miss Westerfield!
+how dare you beg for employment in a newspaper, without asking my
+leave?"
+
+"I only waited to tell you what I had done, till I knew whether
+my advertisement would be answered or not."
+
+She spoke as calmly as before, still submitting to the insolent
+authority of the schoolmistress with a steady fortitude very
+remarkable in any girl--and especially in a girl whose face
+revealed a sensitive nature. Linley approached her, and said his
+few kind words before Miss Wigger could assert herself for the
+third time.
+
+"I am afraid I have taken a liberty in answering you personally,
+when I ought to have answered by letter. My only excuse is that I
+have no time to arrange for an interview, in London, by
+correspondence. I live in Scotland, and I am obliged to return by
+the mail to-night."
+
+He paused. She was looking at him. Did she understand him?
+
+She understood him only too well. For the first time, poor soul,
+in the miserable years of her school life, she saw eyes that
+rested on her with the sympathy that is too truly felt to be
+uttered in words. The admirable resignation which had learned its
+first hard lesson under her mother's neglect--which had endured,
+in after-years, the daily persecution that heartless
+companionship so well knows how to inflict--failed to sustain
+her, when one kind look from a stranger poured its balm into the
+girl's sore heart. Her head sank; her wasted figure trembled; a
+few tears dropped slowly on the bosom of her shabby dress. She
+tried, desperately tried, to control herself. "I beg your pardon,
+sir," was all she could say; "I am not very well."
+
+Miss Wigger tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the door.
+"Are you well enough to see your way out?" she asked.
+
+Linley turned on the wretch with a mind divided between wonder
+and disgust. "Good God, what has she done to deserve being
+treated in that way?" he asked.
+
+Miss Wigger's mouth widened; Miss Wigger's forehead developed new
+wrinkles. To own it plainly, the schoolmistress smiled.
+
+When it is of serious importance to a man to become acquainted
+with a woman's true nature--say, when he contemplates
+marriage--his one poor chance of arriving at a right conclusion
+is to find himself provoked by exasperating circumstances, and to
+fly into a passion. If the lady flies into a passion on her side,
+he may rely on it that her faults are more than balanced by her
+good qualities. If, on the other hand, she exhibits the most
+admirable self-control, and sets him an example which ought to
+make him ashamed of himself, he has seen a bad sign, and he will
+do well to remember it.
+
+Miss Wigger's self-control put Herbert Linley in the wrong,
+before she took the trouble of noticing what he had said.
+
+"If you were not out of temper," she replied, "I might have told
+you that I don't allow my house to be made an office for the
+engagement of governesses. As it is, I merely remind you that
+your carriage is at the door."
+
+He took the only course that was open to him; he took his hat.
+
+Sydney turned away to leave the room. Linley opened the door for
+her. "Don't be discouraged," he whispered as she passed him; "you
+shall hear from me." Having said this, he made his parting bow to
+the schoolmistress. Miss Wigger held up a peremptory forefinger,
+and stopped him on his way out. He waited, wondering what she
+would do next. She rang the bell.
+
+"You are in the house of a gentlewoman," Miss Wigger explained.
+"My servant attends visitors, when they leave me." A faint smell
+of soap made itself felt in the room; the maid appeared, wiping
+her smoking arms on her apron. "Door. I wish you
+good-morning"--were the last words of Miss Wigger.
+
+
+Leaving the house, Linley slipped a bribe into the servant's
+hand. "I am going to write to Miss Westerfield," he said. "Will
+you see that she gets my letter?"
+
+"That I will!"
+
+He was surprised by the fervor with which the girl answered him.
+Absolutely without vanity, he had no suspicion of the value which
+his winning manner, his kind brown eyes, and his sunny smile had
+conferred on his little gift of money. A handsome man was an
+eighth wonder of the world, at Miss Wigger's school.
+
+At the first stationer's shop that he passed, he stopped the
+carriage and wrote his letter.
+
+"I shall be glad indeed if I can offer you a happier life than
+the life you are leading now. It rests with you to help me do
+this. Will you send me the address of your parents, if they are
+in London, or the name of any friend with whom I can arrange to
+give you a trial as governess to my little girl? I am waiting
+your answer in the neighborhood. If any hinderance should prevent
+you from replying at once, I add the name of the hotel at which I
+am staying--so that you may telegraph to me, before I leave
+London to-night."
+
+The stationer's boy, inspired by a private view of half-a-crown,
+set off at a run--and returned at a run with a reply.
+
+"I have neither parents nor friends, and I have just been
+dismissed from my employment at the school. Without references to
+speak for me, I must not take advantage of your generous offer.
+Will you help me to bear my disappointment, permitting me to see
+you, for a few minutes only, at your hotel? Indeed, indeed, sir,
+I am not forgetful of what I owe to my respect for you, and my
+respect for myself. I only ask leave to satisfy you that I am not
+quite unworthy of the interest which you have been pleased to
+feel in--S.W."
+
+In those sad words, Sydney Westerfield announced that she had
+completed her education.
+
+
+THE STORY
+
+
+FIRST BOOK.
+
+
+Chapter I.
+
+
+Mrs. Presty Presents Herself.
+
+NOT far from the source of the famous river, which rises in the
+mountains between Loch Katrine and Loch Lornond, and divides the
+Highlands and the Lowlands of Scotland, travelers arrive at the
+venerable gray walls of Mount Morven; and, after consulting their
+guide books, ask permission to see the house.
+
+What would be called, in a modern place of residence, the first
+floor, is reserved for the occupation of the family. The great
+hall of entrance, and its quaint old fireplace; the ancient rooms
+on the same level opening out of it, are freely shown to
+strangers. Cultivated travelers express various opinions relating
+to the family portraits, and the elaborately carved ceilings. The
+uninstructed public declines to trouble itself with criticism. It
+looks up at the towers and the loopholes, the battlements and the
+rusty old guns, which still bear witness to the perils of past
+times when the place was a fortress--it enters the gloomy hall,
+walks through the stone-paved rooms, stares at the faded
+pictures, and wonders at the lofty chimney-pieces hopelessly out
+of reach. Sometimes it sits on chairs which are as cold and as
+hard as iron, or timidly feels the legs of immovable tables which
+might be legs of elephants so far as size is concerned. When
+these marvels have been duly admired, and the guide books are
+shut up, the emancipated tourists, emerging into the light and
+air, all find the same social problem presented by a visit to
+Mount Morven: "How can the family live in such a place as that?"
+
+If these strangers on their travels had been permitted to ascend
+to the first floor, and had been invited (for example) to say
+good-night to Mrs. Linley's pretty little daughter, they would
+have seen the stone walls of Kitty's bed-chamber snugly covered
+with velvet hangings which kept out the cold; they would have
+trod on a doubly-laid carpet, which set the chilly influences of
+the pavement beneath it at defiance; they would have looked at a
+bright little bed, of the last new pattern, worthy of a child's
+delicious sleep; and they would only have discovered that the
+room was three hundred years old when they had drawn aside the
+window curtains, and had revealed the adamantine solidity of the
+outer walls. Or, if they had been allowed to pursue their
+investigations a little further, and had found their way next
+into Mrs. Linley's sitting room, here again a transformation
+scene would have revealed more modern luxury, presented in the
+perfection which implies restraint within the limits of good
+taste. But on this occasion, instead of seeing the head of a
+lively little child on the pillow, side by side with the head of
+her doll, they would have encountered an elderly lady of
+considerable size, fast asleep and snoring in a vast armchair,
+with a book on her lap. The married men among the tourists would
+have recognized a mother-in-law, and would have set an excellent
+example to the rest; that is to say, the example of leaving the
+room.
+
+The lady composed under the soporific influence of literature was
+a person of importance in the house--holding rank as Mrs.
+Linley's mother; and being otherwise noticeable for having
+married two husbands, and survived them both.
+
+The first of these gentlemen--the Right Honorable Joseph
+Norman--had been a member of Parliament, and had taken office
+under Government. Mrs. Linley was his one surviving child. He
+died at an advanced age; leaving his handsome widow (young
+enough, as she was always ready to mention, to be his daughter)
+well provided for, and an object of matrimonial aspiration to
+single gentlemen who admired size in a woman, set off by money.
+After hesitating for some little time, Mrs. Norman accepted the
+proposal of the ugliest and dullest man among the ranks of her
+admirers. Why she became the wife of Mr. Presty (known in
+commercial circles as a merchant enriched by the sale of vinegar)
+she was never able to explain. Why she lamented him, with tears
+of sincere sorrow, when he died after two years of married life,
+was a mystery which puzzled her nearest and dearest friends. And
+why when she indulged (a little too frequently) in recollections
+of her married life, she persisted in putting obscure Mr. Presty
+on a level with distinguished Mr. Norman, was a secret which this
+remarkable woman had never been known to reveal. Presented by
+their widow with the strictest impartiality to the general view,
+the characters of these two husbands combined, by force of
+contrast, the ideal of manly perfection. That is to say, the
+vices of Mr. Norman were the virtues of Mr. Presty; and the vices
+of Mr. Presty were the virtues of Mr. Norman.
+
+Returning to the sitting-room after bidding Kitty goodnight, Mrs.
+Linley discovered the old lady asleep, and saw that the book on
+her mother's lap was sliding off. Before she could check the
+downward movement, the book fell on the floor, and Mrs. Presty
+woke.
+
+"Oh, mamma, I am so sorry! I was just too late to catch it."
+
+"It doesn't matter, my dear. I daresay I should go to sleep
+again, if I went on with my novel."
+
+"Is it really as dull as that?"
+
+"Dull?" Mrs. Presty repeated. "You are evidently not aware of
+what the new school of novel writing is doing. The new school
+provides the public with soothing fiction."
+
+"Are you speaking seriously, mamma?"
+
+"Seriously, Catherine--and gratefully. These new writers are so
+good to old women. No story to excite our poor nerves; no
+improper characters to cheat us out of our sympathies, no
+dramatic situations to frighten us; exquisite management of
+details (as the reviews say), and a masterly anatomy of human
+motives which--I know what I mean, my dear, but I can't explain
+it."
+
+"I think I understand, mamma. A masterly anatomy of human motives
+which is in itself a motive of human sleep. No; I won't borrow
+your novel just now. I don't want to go to sleep; I am thinking
+of Herbert in London."
+
+Mrs. Presty consulted her watch.
+
+"Your husband is no longer in London," she announced; "he has
+begun his journey home. Give me the railway guide, and I'll tell
+you when he will be here tomorrow. You may trust me, Catherine,
+to make no mistakes. Mr. Presty's wonderful knowledge of figures
+has been of the greatest use to me in later life. Thanks to his
+instructions, I am the only person in the house who can grapple
+with the intricacies of our railway system. Your poor father, Mr.
+Norman, could never understand time-tables and never attempted to
+conceal his deficiencies. He had none of the vanity (harmless
+vanity, perhaps) which led poor Mr. Presty to express positive
+opinions on matters of which he knew nothing, such as pictures
+and music. What do you want, Malcolm?"
+
+The servant to whom this question was addressed answered: "A
+telegram, ma'am, for the mistress."
+
+Mrs. Linley recoiled from the message when the man offered it to
+her. Not usually a very demonstrative person, the feeling of
+alarm which had seized on her only expressed itself in a sudden
+change of color. "An accident!" she said faintly. "An accident on
+the railway!"
+
+Mrs. Presty opened the telegram.
+
+"If you had been the wife of a Cabinet Minister," she said to her
+daughter, "you would have been too well used to telegrams to let
+them frighten you. Mr. Presty (who received his telegrams at his
+office) was not quite just to the memory of my first husband. He
+used to blame Mr. Norman for letting me see his telegrams. But
+Mr. Presty's nature had all the poetry in which Mr. Norman's
+nature was deficient. He saw the angelic side of women--and
+thought telegrams and business, and all that sort of thing,
+unworthy of our mission. I don't exactly understand what our
+mission is--"
+
+"Mamma! mamma! is Herbert hurt?"
+
+"Stuff and nonsense! Nobody is hurt; there has been no accident."
+
+"They why does he telegraph to me?"
+
+Hitherto, Mrs. Presty had only looked at the message. She now
+read it through attentively to the end. Her face assumed an
+expression of stern distrust. She shook her head.
+
+"Read it yourself," she answered; "and remember what I told you,
+when you trusted your husband to find a governess for my
+grandchild. I said: 'You do not know men as I do.' I hope you may
+not live to repent it."
+
+Mrs. Linley was too fond of her husband to let this pass. "Why
+shouldn't I trust him?" she asked. "He was going to London on
+business--and it was an excellent opportunity."
+
+Mrs. Presty disposed of this weak defense of her daughter's
+conduct by waving her hand. "Read your telegram," she repeated
+with dignity, "and judge for yourself."
+
+Mrs. Linley read:
+
+"I have engaged a governess. She will travel in the same train
+with me. I think I ought to prepare you to receive a person whom
+you may be surprised to see. She is very young, and very
+inexperienced; quite unlike the ordinary run of governesses. When
+you hear how cruelly the poor girl has been used, I am sure you
+will sympathize with her as I do."
+
+Mrs. Linley laid down the message, with a smile.
+
+"Poor dear Herbert!" she said tenderly. "After we have been eight
+years married, is he really afraid that I shall be jealous?
+Mamma! Why are you looking so serious?"
+
+Mrs. Presty took the telegram from her daughter and read extracts
+from it with indignant emphasis of voice and manner.
+
+"Travels in the same train with him. Very young, and very
+inexperienced. And he sympathizes with her. Ha! I know the men,
+Catherine--I know the men!"
+
+
+Chapter II.
+
+
+The Governess Enters.
+
+Mr. Herbert Linley arrived at his own house in the forenoon of
+the next day. Mrs. Linley, running out to the head of the stairs
+to meet her husband, saw him approaching her without a traveling
+companion. "Where is the governess?" she asked--when the first
+salutes allowed her the opportunity of speaking.
+
+"On her way to bed, poor soul, under the care of the
+housekeeper," Linley answered.
+
+"Anything infectious, my dear Herbert?" Mrs. Presty inquired
+appearing at the breakfast-room door.
+
+Linley addressed his reply to his wife:
+
+"Nothing more serious, Catherine, than want of strength. She was
+in such a state of fatigue, after our long night journey, that I
+had to lift her out of the carriage."
+
+Mrs. Presty listened with an appearance of the deepest interest.
+"Quite a novelty in the way of a governess," she said. "May I ask
+what her name is?"
+
+"Sydney Westerfield."
+
+Mrs. Presty looked at her daughter and smiled satirically.
+
+Mrs. Linley remonstrated.
+
+"Surely," she said, "you don't object to the young lady's name!"
+
+"I have no opinion to offer, Catherine. I don't believe in the
+name."
+
+"Oh, mamma, do you suspect that it's an assumed name?"
+
+"My dear, I haven't a doubt that it is. May I ask another
+question?" the old lady continued, turning to Linley. "What
+references did Miss Westerfield give you?"
+
+"No references at all."
+
+Mrs. Presty rose with the alacrity of a young woman, and hurried
+to the door. "Follow my example," she said to her daughter, on
+her way out. "Lock up your jewel-box."
+
+Linley drew a deep breath of relief when he was left alone with
+his wife. "What makes your mother so particularly disagreeable
+this morning?" he inquired.
+
+"She doesn't approve, dear, of my leaving it to you to choose a
+governess for Kitty."
+
+"Where is Kitty?"
+
+"Out on her pony for a ride over the hills. Why did you send a
+telegram, Herbert, to prepare me for the governess? Did you
+really think I might be jealous of Miss Westerfield?"
+
+Linley burst out laughing. "No such idea entered my head," he
+answered. "It isn't _in_ you, my dear, to be jealous."
+
+Mrs. Linley was not quite satisfied with this view of her
+character. Her husband's well-intended compliment reminded her
+that there are occasions when any woman may be jealous, no matter
+how generous and how gentle she may be. "We won't go quite so far
+as that," she said to him, "because--" She stopped, unwilling to
+dwell too long on a delicate subject. He jocosely finished the
+sentence for her. "Because we don't know what may happen in the
+future?" he suggested; making another mistake by making a joke.
+
+Mrs. Linley returned to the subject of the governess.
+
+"I don't at all say what my mother says," she resumed; "but was
+it not just a little indiscreet to engage Miss Westerfield
+without any references?"
+
+"Unless I am utterly mistaken," Linley replied, "you would have
+been quite as indiscreet, in my place. If you had seen the
+horrible woman who persecuted and insulted her--"
+
+His wife interrupted him. "How did all this happen, Herbert? Who
+first introduced you to Miss Westerfield?"
+
+Linley mentioned the advertisement, and described his interview
+with the schoolmistress. Having next acknowledged that he had
+received a visit from Miss Westerfield herself, he repeated all
+that she had been able to tell him of her father's wasted life
+and melancholy end. Really interested by this time, Mrs. Linley
+was eager for more information. Her husband hesitated. "I would
+rather you heard the rest of it from Miss Westerfield," he said,
+"in my absence."
+
+"Why in your absence?"
+
+"Because she can speak to you more freely, when I am not present.
+Hear her tell her own story, and then let me know whether you
+think I have made a mistake. I submit to your decision
+beforehand, whichever way it may incline."
+
+Mrs. Linley rewarded him with a kiss. If a married stranger had
+seen them, at that moment, he would have been reminded of
+forgotten days--the days of his honeymoon.
+
+"And now," Linley resumed, "suppose we talk a little about
+ourselves. I haven't seen any brother yet. Where is Randal?"
+
+"Staying at the farm to look after your interests. We expect him
+to come back to-day. Ah, Herbert, what do we not all owe to that
+dear good brother of yours? There is really no end to his
+kindness. The last of our poor Highland families who have
+emigrated to America have had their expenses privately paid by
+Randal. The wife has written to me, and has let out the secret.
+There is an American newspaper, among the letters that are
+waiting your brother's return, sent to him as a little mark of
+attention by these good grateful people." Having alluded to the
+neighbors who had left Scotland, Mrs. Linley was reminded of
+other neighbors who had remained. She was still relating events
+of local interest, when the clock interrupted her by striking the
+hour of the nursery dinner. What had become of Kitty? Mrs. Linley
+rose and rang the bell to make inquiries.
+
+On the point of answering, the servant looked round at the open
+door behind him. He drew aside, and revealed Kitty, in the
+corridor, hand in hand with Sydney Westerfield--who timidly
+hesitated at entering the room. "Here she is mamma," cried the
+child. "I think she's afraid of you; help me to pull her in."
+
+Mrs. Linley advanced to receive the new member of her household,
+with the irresistible grace and kindness which charmed every
+stranger who approached her. "Oh, it's all right," said Kitty.
+"Syd likes me, and I like Syd. What do you think? She lived in
+London with a cruel woman who never gave her enough to eat. See
+what a good girl I am? I'm beginning to feed her already." Kitty
+pulled a box of sweetmeats out of her pocket, and handed it to
+the governess with a tap on the lid, suggestive of an old
+gentleman offering a pinch of snuff to a friend.
+
+"My dear child, you mustn't speak of Miss Westerfield in that
+way! Pray excuse her," said Mrs. Linley, turning to Sydney with a
+smile; "I am afraid she has been disturbing you in your room."
+
+Sydney's silent answer touched the mother's heart; she kissed her
+little friend. "I hope you will let her call me Syd," she said
+gently; "it reminds me of a happier time." Her voice faltered;
+she could say no more. Kitty explained, with the air of a grown
+person encouraging a child. "I know all about it, mamma. She
+means the time when her papa was alive. She lost her papa when
+she was a little girl like me. I didn't disturb her. I only said,
+'My name's Kitty; may I get up on the bed?' And she was quite
+willing; and we talked. And I helped her to dress." Mrs. Linley
+led Sydney to the sofa, and stopped the flow of her daughter's
+narrative. The look, the voice, the manner of the governess had
+already made their simple appeal to her generous nature. When her
+husband took Kitty's hand to lead her with him out of the room,
+she whispered as he passed: "You have done quite right; I haven't
+a doubt of it now!"
+
+
+Chapter III.
+
+
+Mrs. Presty Changes Her Mind.
+
+
+The two ladies were alone.
+
+Widely as the lot in life of one differed from the lot in life of
+the other, they presented a contrast in personal appearance which
+was more remarkable still. In the prime of life, tall and
+fair--the beauty of her delicate complexion and her brilliant
+blue eyes rivaled by the charm of a figure which had arrived at
+its mature perfection of development--Mrs. Linley sat side by
+side with a frail little dark-eyed creature, thin and pale, whose
+wasted face bore patient witness to the three cruelest privations
+under which youth can suffer--want of fresh air, want of
+nourishment, and want of kindness. The gentle mistress of the
+house wondered sadly if this lost child of misfortune was capable
+of seeing the brighter prospect before her that promised
+enjoyment of a happier life to come.
+
+"I was afraid to disturb you while you were resting," Mrs. Linley
+said. "Let me hope that my housekeeper has done what I might have
+done myself, if I had seen you when you arrived."
+
+"The housekeeper has been all that is good and kind to me,
+madam."
+
+"Don't call me 'madam'; it sounds so formal--call me 'Mrs.
+Linley.' You must not think of beginning to teach Kitty till you
+feel stronger and better. I see but too plainly that you have not
+been happy. Don't think of your past life, or speak of your past
+life."
+
+"Forgive me, Mrs. Linley; my past life is my one excuse for
+having ventured to come into this house."
+
+"In what way, my dear?"
+
+At the moment when that question was put, the closed curtains
+which separated the breakfast-room from the library were softly
+parted in the middle. A keen old face, strongly marked by
+curiosity and distrust, peeped through--eyed the governess with
+stern scrutiny--and retired again into hiding.
+
+The introduction of a stranger (without references) into the
+intimacy of the family circle was, as Mrs. Presty viewed it, a
+crisis in domestic history. Conscience, with its customary
+elasticity, adapted itself to the emergency, and Linley's
+mother-in-law stole information behind the curtain--in Linley's
+best interests, it is quite needless to say.
+
+The talk of the two ladies went on, without a suspicion on either
+side that it was overheard by a third person.
+
+Sydney explained herself.
+
+"If I had led a happier life," she said, "I might have been able
+to resist Mr. Linley's kindness. I concealed nothing from him. He
+knew that I had no friends to speak for me; he knew that I had
+been dismissed from my employment at the school. Oh, Mrs. Linley,
+everything I said which would have made other people suspicious
+of me made _him_ feel for me! I began to wonder whether he was an
+angel or a man. If he had not prevented it, I should have fallen
+on my knees before him. Hard looks and hard words I could have
+endured patiently, but I had not seen a kind look, I had not
+heard a kind word, for more years than I can reckon up. That is
+all I can say for myself; I leave the rest to your mercy."
+
+"Say my sympathy," Mrs. Linley answered, "and you need say no
+more.. But there is one thing I should like to know. You have not
+spoken to me of your mother. Have you lost both your parents?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then you were brought up by your mother?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You surely had some experience of kindness when you were a
+child?"
+
+A third short answer would have been no very grateful return for
+Mrs. Linley's kindness. Sydney had no choice but to say plainly
+what her experience of her mother had been.
+
+"Are there such women in the world!" Mrs. Linley exclaimed.
+"Where is your mother now?"
+
+"In America--I think."
+
+"You think?"
+
+"My mother married again," said Sydney. "She went to America with
+her husband and my little brother, six years ago."
+
+"And left you behind?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And has she never written to you;"
+
+"Never."
+
+This time, Mrs. Linley kept silence; not without an effort.
+Thinking of Sydney's mother--and for one morbid moment seeing her
+own little darling in Sydney's place--she was afraid to trust
+herself to speak while the first impression was vividly present
+to her mind.
+
+"I will only hope," she replied, after waiting a little, "that
+some kind person pitied and helped you when you were deserted.
+Any change must have been for the better after that. Who took
+charge of you?"
+
+"My mother's sister took charge of me, an elder sister, who kept
+a school. The time when I was most unhappy was the time when my
+aunt began to teach me. 'If you don't want to be beaten, and kept
+on bread and water,' she said, 'learn, you ugly little wretch,
+and be quick about it."'
+
+"Did she speak in that shameful way to the other girls?"
+
+"Oh, no! I was taken into her school for nothing, and, young as I
+was, I was expected to earn my food and shelter by being fit to
+teach the lowest class. The girls hated me. It was such a
+wretched life that I hardly like to speak of it now. I ran away,
+and I was caught, and severely punished. When I grew older and
+wiser, I tried to find some other employment for myself. The
+elder girls bought penny journals that published stories. They
+were left about now and then in the bedrooms. I read the stories
+when I had the chance. Even my ignorance discovered how feeble
+and foolish they were. They encouraged me to try if I could write
+a story myself; I couldn't do worse, and I might do better. I
+sent my manuscript to the editor. It was accepted and
+printed--but when I wrote and asked him if he would pay me
+something for it, he refused. Dozens of ladies, he said, wrote
+stories for him for nothing. It didn't matter what the stories
+were. Anything would do for his readers, so long as the
+characters were lords and ladies, and there was plenty of love in
+it. My next attempt to get away from the school ended in another
+disappointment. A poor old man, who had once been an actor, used
+to come to us twice a week, and get a few shillings by teaching
+the girls to read aloud. He was called 'Professor of English
+Literature,' and he taught out of a ragged book of verses which
+smelled of his pipe. I learned one of the pieces and repeated it
+to him, and asked if there was any hope of my being able to go on
+the stage. He was very kind; he told me the truth. 'My dear, you
+have no dramatic ability; God forbid you should go on the stage.'
+I went back again to the penny journals, and tried a new editor.
+He seemed to have more money than the other one; or perhaps he
+was kinder. I got ten shillings from him for my story. With that
+money I made my last attempt--I advertised for a situation as
+governess. If Mr. Linley had not seen my advertisement, I might
+have starved in the streets. When my aunt heard of it, she
+insisted on my begging her pardon before the whole school. Do
+girls get half maddened by persecution? If they do, I think I
+must have been one of those girls. I refused to beg pardon; and I
+was dismissed from my situation without a character. Will you
+think me very foolish? I shut my eyes again, when I woke in my
+delicious bed today. I was afraid that the room, and everything
+in it, was a dream." She looked round, and started to her feet.
+"Oh, here's a lady! Shall I go away?"
+
+The curtains hanging over the entrance to the library were opened
+for the second time. With composure and dignity, the lady who had
+startled Sydney entered the room.
+
+"Have you been reading in the library?" Mrs. Linley asked. And
+Mrs. Presty answered: "No, Catherine; I have been listening."
+
+Mrs. Linley looked at her mother; her lovely complexion reddened
+with a deep blush.
+
+"Introduce me to Miss Westerfield," Mrs. Presty proceeded, as
+coolly as ever.
+
+Mrs. Linley showed some hesitation. What would the governess
+think of her mother? Perfectly careless of what the governess
+might think, Mrs. Presty crossed the room and introduced herself.
+
+"Miss Westerfield, I am Mrs. Linley's mother. And I am, in one
+respect, a remarkable person. When I form an opinion and find
+it's the opinion of a fool, I am not in the least ashamed to
+change my mind. I have changed my mind about you. Shake hands."
+
+Sydney respectfully obeyed.
+
+"Sit down again." Sydney returned to her chair.
+
+"I had the worst possible opinion of you," Mrs. Presty resumed,
+"before I had the pleasure of listening on the other side of the
+curtain. It has been my good fortune--what's your Christian name?
+Did I hear it? or have I forgotten it? 'Sydney,' eh? Very well. I
+was about to say, Sydney, that it has been my good fortune to be
+intimately associated, in early life, with two remarkable
+characters. Husbands of mine, in short, whose influence over me
+has, I am proud to say, set death and burial at defiance. Between
+them they have made my mind the mind of a man. I judge for
+myself. The opinions of others (when they don't happen to agree
+with mine) I regard as chaff to be scattered to the winds. No,
+Catherine, I am not wandering. I am pointing out to a young
+person, who has her way to make in the world, the vast
+importance, on certain occasions, of possessing an independent
+mind. If I had been ashamed to listen behind those curtains,
+there is no injury that my stupid prejudices might not have
+inflicted on this unfortunate girl. As it is, I have heard her
+story, and I do her justice. Count on me, Sydney, as your friend,
+and now get up again. My grandchild (never accustomed to wait for
+anything since the day when she was born) is waiting dinner for
+you. She is at this moment shouting for her governess, as King
+Richard (I am a great reader of Shakespeare) once shouted for his
+horse. The maid (you will recognize her as a stout person
+suffering under tight stays) is waiting outside to show you the
+way to the nursery. _Au revoir._ Stop! I should like to judge the
+purity of your French accent. Say 'au revoir' to me. Thank
+you.--Weak in her French, Catherine," Mrs. Presty pronounced,
+when the door had closed on the governess; "but what can you
+expect, poor wretch, after such a life as she has led? Now we are
+alone, I have a word of advice for your private ear. We have much
+to anticipate from Miss Westerfield that is pleasant and
+encouraging. But I don't conceal it from myself or from you, we
+have also something to fear."
+
+"To fear?" Mrs. Linley repeated. "I don't understand you."
+
+"Never mind, Catherine, whether you understand me or not. I want
+more information. Tell me what your husband said to you about
+this young lady?"
+
+Wondering at the demon of curiosity which appeared to possess her
+mother, Mrs. Linley obeyed. Listening throughout with the closest
+attention, Mrs. Presty reckoned up the items of information, and
+pointed the moral to be drawn from them by worldly experience.
+
+"First obstacle in the way of her moral development, her
+father--tried, found guilty, and dying in prison. Second
+obstacle, her mother--an unnatural wretch who neglected and
+deserted her own flesh and blood. Third obstacle, her mother's
+sister--being her mother over again in an aggravated form. People
+who only look at the surface of things might ask what we gain by
+investigating Miss Westerfield's past life. We gain this: we know
+what to expect of Miss Westerfield in the future."
+
+"I for one," Mrs. Linley interposed, "expect everything that is
+good and true."
+
+"Say she's naturally an angel," Mrs. Presty answered; "and I
+won't contradict you. But do pray hear how my experience looks at
+it. I remember what a life she has led, and I ask myself if any
+human creature could have suffered as that girl has suffered
+without being damaged by it. Among those damnable people--I beg
+your pardon, my dear; Mr. Norman sometimes used strong language,
+and it breaks out of me now and then--the good qualities of that
+unfortunate young person can _not_ have always resisted the
+horrid temptations and contaminations about her. Hundreds of
+times she must have had deceit forced on her; she must have lied,
+through ungovernable fear; she must have been left (at a critical
+time in her life, mind!) with no more warning against the
+insidious advances of the passions than--than--I'm repeating what
+Mr. Presty said of a niece of his own, who went to a bad school
+at Paris; and I don't quite remember what comparisons that
+eloquent man used when he was excited. But I know what I mean. I
+like Miss Westerfield; I believe Miss Westerfield will come out
+well in the end. But I don't forget that she is going to lead a
+new life here--a life of luxury, my dear; a life of ease and
+health and happiness--and God only knows what evil seed sown in
+her, in her past life, may not spring up under new influences. I
+tell you we must be careful; I tell you we must keep our eyes
+open. And so much the better for Her. And so much the better for
+Us."
+
+Mrs. Presty's wise and wary advice (presented unfavorably, it
+must be owned, through her inveterately quaint way of expressing
+herself) failed to produce the right impression on her daughter's
+mind. Mrs. Linley replied in the tone of a person who was
+unaffectedly shocked.
+
+"Oh, mamma, I never knew you so unjust before! You can't have
+heard all that Miss Westerfield said to me. You don't know her,
+as I know her. So patient, so forgiving, so grateful to Herbert."
+
+"So grateful to Herbert." Mrs. Presty looked at her daughter in
+silent surprise. There could be no doubt about it; Mrs. Linley
+failed entirely to see any possibilities of future danger in the
+grateful feeling of her sensitive governess toward her handsome
+husband. At this exhibition of simplicity, the old lady's last
+reserves of endurance gave way: she rose to go. "You have an
+excellent heart, Catherine," she remarked; "but as for your
+head--"
+
+"Well, and what of my head?"
+
+"It's always beautifully dressed, my dear, by your maid." With
+that parting shot, Mrs. Presty took her departure by way of the
+library. Almost at the same moment, the door of the
+breakfast-room was opened. A young man advanced, and shook hands
+cordially with Mrs. Linley.
+
+
+Chapter IV.
+
+
+Randal Receives His Correspondence.
+
+
+Self-revealed by the family likeness as Herbert's brother, Randal
+Linley was nevertheless greatly Herbert's inferior in personal
+appearance. His features were in no way remarkable for manly
+beauty. In stature, he hardly reached the middle height; and
+young as he was, either bad habit or physical weakness had so
+affected the upper part of his figure that he stooped. But with
+these, and other disadvantages, there was something in his eyes,
+and in his smile--the outward expression perhaps of all that was
+modestly noble in his nature--so irresistible in its attractive
+influence that men, women, and children felt the charm alike.
+Inside of the house, and outside of the house, everybody was fond
+of Randal; even Mrs. Presty included.
+
+"Have you seen a new face among us, since you returned?" were his
+sister-in-law's first words. Randal answered that he had seen
+Miss Westerfield. The inevitable question followed. What did he
+think of her? "I'll tell you in a week or two more," he replied.
+
+"No! tell me at once."
+
+"I don't like trusting my first impression; I have a bad habit of
+jumping to conclusions."
+
+"Jump to a conclusion to please me. Do you think she's pretty?"
+
+Randal smiled and looked away. "Your governess," he replied,
+"looks out of health, and (perhaps for that reason) strikes me as
+being insignificant and ugly. Let us see what our fine air and
+our easy life here will do for her. In so young a woman as she
+is, I am prepared for any sort of transformation. We may be all
+admiring pretty Miss Westerfield before another month is over our
+heads.--Have any letters come for me while I have been away?"
+
+He went into the library and returned with his letters. "This
+will amuse Kitty," he said, handing his sister-in-law the
+illustrated New York newspaper, to which she had already referred
+in speaking to her husband.
+
+Mrs. Linley examined the engravings--and turned back again to
+look once more at an illustration which had interested her. A
+paragraph on the same page caught her attention. She had hardly
+glanced at the first words before a cry of alarm escaped her.
+"Dreadful news for Miss Westerfield!" she exclaimed. "Read it,
+Randal."
+
+He read these words:
+
+
+"The week's list of insolvent traders includes an Englishman
+named James Bellbridge, formerly connected with a disreputable
+saloon in this city. Bellbridge is under suspicion of having
+caused the death of his wife in a fit of delirium tremens. The
+unfortunate woman had been married, for the first time, to one of
+the English aristocracy--the Honorable Roderick
+Westerfield--whose trial for casting away a ship under his
+command excited considerable interest in London some years since.
+The melancholy circumstances of the case are complicated by the
+disappearance, on the day of the murder, of the woman's young son
+by her first husband. The poor boy is supposed to have run away
+in terror from his miserable home, and the police are endeavoring
+to discover some trace of him. It is reported that another child
+of the first marriage (a daughter) is living in England. But
+nothing is known about her."
+
+
+"Has your governess any relations in England?" Randal asked.
+
+"Only an aunt, who has treated her in the most inhuman manner."
+
+"Serious news for Miss Westerfield, as you say," Randal resumed.
+"And, as I think, serious news for us. Here is a mere girl--a
+poor friendless creature--absolutely dependent on our protection.
+What are we to do if anything happens, in the future, to alter
+our present opinion of her?"
+
+"Nothing of the sort is likely to happen," Mrs. Linley declared.
+
+"Let us hope not," Randal said, gravely.
+
+
+Chapter V.
+
+
+Randal Writes to New York.
+
+
+The members of the family at Mount Morven consulted together,
+before Sydney Westerfield was informed of her brother's
+disappearance and of her mother's death.
+
+Speaking first, as master of the house, Herbert Linley offered
+his opinion without hesitation. His impulsive kindness shrank
+from the prospect of reviving the melancholy recollections
+associated with Sydney's domestic life. "Why distress the poor
+child, just as she is beginning to feel happy among us?" he
+asked. "Give me the newspaper; I shan't feel easy till I have
+torn it up."
+
+His wife drew the newspaper out of his reach. "Wait a little,"
+she said, quietly; "some of us may feel that it is no part of our
+duty to conceal the truth."
+
+Mrs. Presty spoke next. To the surprise of the family council,
+she agreed with her son-in-law.
+
+"Somebody must speak out," the old lady began; "and I mean to set
+the example. Telling the truth," she declared, turning severely
+to her daughter, "is a more complicated affair than you seem to
+think. It's a question of morality, of course; but--in family
+circles, my dear--it's sometimes a question of convenience as
+well. Is it convenient to upset my granddaughter's governess,
+just as she is entering on her new duties? Certainly not! Good
+heavens, what does it matter to my young friend Sydney whether
+her unnatural mother lives or dies? Herbert, I second your
+proposal to tear up the paper with the greatest pleasure."
+
+Herbert, sitting next to Randal, laid his hand affectionately on
+his brother's shoulder. "Are you on our side?" he asked.
+
+Randal hesitated.
+
+"I feel inclined to agree with you," he said to Herbert. "It does
+seem hard to recall Miss Westerfield to the miserable life that
+she has led, and to do it in the way of all others which must try
+her fortitude most cruelly. At the same time--"
+
+"Oh, don't spoil what you have said by seeing the other side of
+the question!" cried his brother "You have already put it
+admirably; leave it as it is."
+
+"At the same time," Randal gently persisted, "I have heard no
+reasons which satisfy me that we have a right to keep Miss
+Westerfield in ignorance of what has happened."
+
+This serious view of the question in debate highly diverted Mrs.
+Presty. "I do not like that man," she announced, pointing to
+Randal; "he always amuses me. Look at him now! He doesn't know
+which side he is on, himself."
+
+"He is on my side," Herbert declared.
+
+"Not he!"
+
+Herbert consulted his brother. "What do you say yourself?"
+
+"I don't know," Randal answered.
+
+"There!" cried Mrs. Presty. "What did I tell you?"
+
+Randal tried to set his strange reply in the right light. "I only
+mean," he explained, "that I want a little time to think."
+
+Herbert gave up the dispute and appealed to his wife. "You have
+still got the American newspaper in your hand," he said. "What do
+you mean to do with it?"
+
+Quietly and firmly Mrs. Linley answered: "I mean to show it to
+Miss Westerfield."
+
+"Against my opinion? Against your mother's opinion?" Herbert
+asked. "Have we no influence over you? Do as Randal does--take
+time, my dear, to think."
+
+She answered this with her customary calmness of manner and
+sweetness of tone. "I am afraid I must appear obstinate; but it
+is indeed true that I want no time to think; my duty is too plain
+to me."
+
+Her husband and her mother listened to her in astonishment. Too
+amiable and too happy--and it must be added too indolent--to
+assert herself in the ordinary emergencies of family life, Mrs.
+Linley only showed of what metal she was made on the very rare
+occasions when the latent firmness in her nature was stirred to
+its innermost depths. The general experience of this
+sweet-tempered and delightful woman, ranging over long intervals
+of time, was the only experience which remained in the memories
+of the persons about her. In bygone days, they had been amazed
+when her unexpected readiness and firmness of decision presented
+an exception to a general rule--just as they were amazed now.
+
+Herbert tried a last remonstrance. "Is it possible, Catherine,
+that you don't see the cruelty of showing that newspaper to Miss
+Westerfield?"
+
+Even this appeal to Mrs. Linley's sympathies failed to shake her
+resolution. "You may trust me to be careful," was all she said in
+reply; "I shall prepare her as tenderly for the sad news from
+America, as if she was a daughter of my own."
+
+Hearing this, Mrs. Presty showed a sudden interest in the
+proceedings "When do you mean to begin?" she asked.
+
+"At once, mamma."
+
+Mrs. Presty broke up the meeting on the spot. "Wait till I am out
+of the way," she stipulated. "Do you object to Herbert giving me
+his arm? Distressing scenes are not in his line or in mine."
+
+Mrs. Linley made no objection. Herbert resigned himself (not at
+all unwillingly) to circumstances. Arm in arm, he and his wife's
+mother left the room.
+
+Randal showed no intention of following them; he had given
+himself time to think. "We are all wrong, Catherine," he said;
+"and you alone are right. What can I do to help you?"
+
+She took his hand gratefully. "Always kind! Never thinking of
+yourself! I will see Miss Westerfield in my own room. Wait here,
+in case I want you."
+
+After a much shorter absence than Randal anticipated, Mrs. Linley
+returned. "Has it been very distressing?" he asked, seeing the
+traces of tears in her eyes.
+
+"There are noble qualities," she answered, "in that poor ill-used
+girl. Her one thought, as soon as she began to understand my
+motive in speaking to her, was not for herself, but for me. Even
+you, a man, must have felt the tears in your eyes, if you had
+heard her promise that I should suffer no further anxiety on her
+account. 'You shall see no distressing change in me,' she said,
+'when we meet to-morrow.' All she asked was to be left in her
+room for the rest of the day. I feel sure of her resolution to
+control herself; and yet I should like to encourage her if I can.
+Her chief sorrow (as it seems to me) must be--not for the mother
+who has so shamefully neglected her--but for the poor little
+brother, a castaway lost in a strange land. Can we do nothing to
+relieve her anxiety?"
+
+"I can write," Randal said, "to a man whom I know in New York; a
+lawyer in large practice."
+
+"The very person we want! Write--pray write by today's post."
+
+The letter was dispatched. It was decided--and wisely decided, as
+the result proved--to say nothing to Sydney until the answer was
+received. Randal's correspondent wrote back with as little delay
+as possible. He had made every inquiry without success. Not a
+trace of the boy had been found, or (in the opinion of the
+police) was likely to be found. The one event that had happened,
+since the appearance of the paragraph in the New York journal,
+was the confinement of James Bellbridge in an asylum, as a madman
+under restraint without hope of recovery.
+
+
+Chapter VI.
+
+
+Sydney Teaches.
+
+
+Mrs. Presty had not very seriously exaggerated the truth, when
+she described her much-indulged granddaughter as "a child who had
+never been accustomed to wait for anything since the day when she
+was born."
+
+Governesses in general would have found it no easy matter to
+produce a favorable impression on Kitty, and to exert the
+necessary authority in instructing her, at the same time. Spoiled
+children (whatever moralists may say to the contrary) are
+companionable and affectionate children, for the most
+part--except when they encounter the unfortunate persons employed
+to introduce them to useful knowledge. Mr. and Mrs. Linley
+(guiltily conscious of having been too fond of their only child
+to subject her to any sort of discipline) were not very willing
+to contemplate the prospect before Miss Westerfield on her first
+establishment in the schoolroom. To their surprise and relief
+there proved to be no cause for anxiety after all. Without making
+an attempt to assert her authority, the new governess succeeded
+nevertheless when older and wiser women would have failed.
+
+The secret of Sydney's triumph over adverse circumstances lay
+hidden in Sydney herself.
+
+Everything in the ordinary routine of life at Mount Morven was a
+source of delight and surprise to the unfortunate creature who
+had passed through six years of cruelty, insult, and privation at
+her aunt's school. Look where she might, in her new sphere of
+action, she saw pleasant faces and heard kind words. At meal
+times, wonderful achievements in the art of cookery appeared on
+the table which she had not only never tasted, but never even
+heard of. When she went out walking with her pupil they were free
+to go where they pleased, without restriction of time--except the
+time of dinner. To breathe the delicious air, to look at the
+glorious scenery, were enjoyments so exquisitely exhilarating
+that, by Sydney's own confession, she became quite light headed
+with pleasure. She ran races with Kitty--and nobody reproved her.
+She rested, out of breath, while the stronger child was ready to
+run on--and no merciless voice cried "None of your laziness;
+time's up!" Wild flowers that she had never yet seen might be
+gathered, and no offense was committed. Kitty told her the names
+of the flowers, and the names of the summer insects that flashed
+and hummed in the hillside breezes; and was so elated at teaching
+her governess that her rampant spirits burst out in singing.
+"Your turn next," the joyous child cried, when she too was out of
+breath. "Sing, Sydney--sing!" Alas for Sydney! She had not sung
+since those happiest days of her childhood, when her good father
+had told her fairy stories, and taught her songs. They were all
+forgotten now. "I can't sing, Kitty; I can't sing." The pupil,
+hearing this melancholy confession, became governess once more.
+"Say the words, Syd; and hum the tune after me." They laughed
+over the singing lesson, until the echoes of the hills mocked
+them, and laughed too. Looking into the schoolroom, one day, Mrs.
+Linley found that the serious business of teaching was not
+neglected. The lessons went on smoothly, without an obstacle in
+the way. Kitty was incapable of disappointing her friend and
+playfellow, who made learning easy with a smile and a kiss. The
+balance of authority was regulated to perfection in the lives of
+these two simple creatures. In the schoolroom, the governess
+taught the child. Out of the schoolroom, the child taught the
+governess. Division of labor was a principle in perfect working
+order at Mount Morven--and nobody suspected it! But, as the weeks
+followed each other, one more remarkable circumstance presented
+itself which every person in the household was equally quick to
+observe. The sad Sydney Westerfield whom they all pitied had now
+become the pretty Sydney Westerfield whom they all admired. It
+was not merely a change--it was a transformation. Kitty stole the
+hand-glass from her mother's room, and insisted that her
+governess should take it and look at herself. "Papa says you're
+as plump as a partridge; and mamma says you're as fresh as a
+rose; and Uncle Randal wags his head, and tells them he saw it
+from the first. I heard it all when they thought I was playing
+with my doll--and I want to know, you best of nice girls, what
+you think of your own self?"
+
+"I think, my dear, it's time we went on with our lessons."
+
+"Wait a little, Syd; I have something else to say."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"It's about papa. He goes out walking with us--doesn't he?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He didn't go out walking with me--before you came here. I've
+been thinking about it; and I'm sure papa likes you. What are you
+looking in the drawer for?"
+
+"For your lesson books, dear."
+
+"Yes--but I haven't quite done yet. Papa talks a good deal to
+you, and you don't talk much to papa. Don't you like him?"
+
+"Oh, Kitty!"
+
+"Then do you like him?"
+
+"How can I help liking him? I owe all my happiness to your papa."
+
+"Do you like him better than mamma?"
+
+"I should be very ungrateful, if I liked anybody better than your
+mamma."
+
+Kitty considered a little, and shook her head. "I don't
+understand that," she declared roundly. "What do you mean?"
+
+Sydney cleaned the pupil's slate, and set the pupil's sum--and
+said nothing.
+
+Kitty placed a suspicious construction of her own on her
+governess's sudden silence. "Perhaps you don't like my wanting to
+know so many things," she suggested. "Or perhaps you meant to
+puzzle me?"
+
+Sydney sighed, and answered, "I'm puzzled myself."
+
+
+
+Chapter VII.
+
+
+Sydney Suffers.
+
+In the autumn holiday-time friends in the south, who happened to
+be visiting Scotland, were invited to stop at Mount Morven on
+their way to the Highlands; and were accustomed to meet the
+neighbors of the Linleys at dinner on their arrival. The time for
+this yearly festival had now come round again; the guests were in
+the house; and Mr. and Mrs. Linley were occupied in making their
+arrangements for the dinner-party. With her unfailing
+consideration for every one about her, Mrs. Linley did not forget
+Sydney while she was sending out her cards of invitation. "Our
+table will be full at dinner," she said to her husband; "Miss
+Westerfield had better join us in the evening with Kitty."
+
+"I suppose so," Linley answered with some hesitation.
+
+"You seem to doubt about it, Herbert. Why?"
+
+"I was only wondering--"
+
+"Wondering about what?"
+
+"Has Miss Westerfield got a gown, Catherine, that will do for a
+party?"
+
+Linley's wife looked at him as if she doubted the evidence of her
+own senses. "Fancy a man thinking of that!" she exclaimed.
+"Herbert, you astonish me."
+
+He laughed uneasily. "I don't know how I came to think of
+it--unless it is that she wears the same dress every day. Very
+neat; but (perhaps I'm wrong) a little shabby too."
+
+"Upon my word, you pay Miss Westerfield a compliment which you
+have never paid to me! Wear what I may, you never seem to know
+how _I_ am dressed."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Catherine, I know that you are always dressed
+well."
+
+That little tribute restored him to his place in his wife's
+estimation. "I may tell you now," she resumed, with her gentle
+smile, "that you only remind me of what I had thought of already.
+My milliner is at work for Miss Westerfield. The new dress must
+be your gift."
+
+"Are you joking?"
+
+"I am in earnest. To-morrow is Sydney's birthday; and here is
+_my_ present." She opened a jeweler's case, and took out a plain
+gold bracelet. "Suggested by Kitty," she added, pointing to an
+inlaid miniature portrait of the child. Herbert read the
+inscription: _To Sydney Westerfield with Catherine Linley's
+love._ He gave the bracelet back to his wife in silence; his
+manner was more serious than usual--he kissed her hand.
+
+The day of the dinner-party marked an epoch in Sydney's life.
+
+For the first time, in all her past experience, she could look in
+the glass, and see herself prettily dressed, with a gold bracelet
+on her arm. If we consider how men (in one way) and milliners (in
+another) profit by it, vanity is surely to be reckoned, not among
+the vices but among the virtues of the sex. Will any woman, who
+speaks the truth, hesitate to acknowledge that her first
+sensations of gratified vanity rank among the most exquisite and
+most enduring pleasures that she has ever felt? Sydney locked her
+door, and exhibited herself to herself--in the front view, the
+side view, and the back view (over the shoulder) with eyes that
+sparkled and cheeks that glowed in a delicious confusion of pride
+and astonishment. She practiced bowing to strangers in her new
+dress; she practiced shaking hands gracefully, with her bracelet
+well in view. Suddenly she stood still before the glass and
+became serious and thoughtful. Kind and dear Mr. Linley was in
+her mind now. While she was asking herself anxiously what he
+would think of her, Kitty--arrayed in _her_ new finery, as vain
+and as happy as her governess--drummed with both fists outside
+the door, and announced at the top of her voice that it was time
+to go downstairs. Sydney's agitation at the prospect of meeting
+the ladies in the drawing-room added a charm of its own to the
+flush that her exercises before the glass had left on her face.
+Shyly following instead of leading her little companion into the
+room, she presented such a charming appearance of youth and
+beauty that the ladies paused in their talk to look at her. Some
+few admired Kitty's governess with generous interest; the greater
+number doubted Mrs. Linley's prudence in engaging a girl so very
+pretty and so very young. Little by little, Sydney's
+manner--simple, modest, shrinking from observation--pleaded in
+her favor even with the ladies who had been prejudiced against
+her at the outset. When Mrs. Linley presented her to the guests,
+the most beautiful woman among them (Mrs. MacEdwin) made room for
+her on the sofa, and with perfect tact and kindness set the
+stranger at her ease. When the gentlemen came in from the
+dinner-table, Sydney was composed enough to admire the brilliant
+scene, and to wonder again, as she had wondered already, what Mr.
+Linley would say to her new dress.
+
+Mr. Linley certainly did notice her--at a distance.
+
+He looked at her with a momentary fervor of interest and
+admiration which made Sydney (so gratefully and so guiltlessly
+attached to him) tremble with pleasure; he even stepped forward
+as if to approach her, checked himself, and went back again among
+his guests. Now, in one part of the room, and now in another, she
+saw him speaking to them. The one neglected person whom he never
+even looked at again, was the poor girl to whom his approval was
+the breath of her life. Had she ever felt so unhappy as she felt
+now? No, not even at her aunt's school!
+
+Friendly Mrs. MacEdwin touched her arm. "My dear, you are losing
+your pretty color. Are you overcome by the heat? Shall I take you
+into the next room?"
+
+Sydney expressed her sincere sense of the lady's kindness. Her
+commonplace excuse was a true excuse--she had a headache; and she
+asked leave to retire to her room.
+
+Approaching the door, she found herself face to face with Mr.
+Linley. He had just been giving directions to one of the
+servants, and was re-entering the drawing-room. She stopped,
+trembling and cold; but, in the very intensity of her
+wretchedness, she found courage enough to speak to him.
+
+"You seem to avoid me, Mr. Linley," she began, addressing him
+with ceremonious respect, and keeping her eyes on the ground. "I
+hope--" she hesitated, and desperately looked at him--"I hope I
+haven't done anything to offend you?"
+
+In her knowledge of him, up to that miserable evening, he
+constantly spoke to her with a smile. She had never yet seen him
+so serious and so inattentive as he was now. His eyes, wandering
+round the room, rested on Mrs. Linley--brilliant and beautiful,
+and laughing gayly. Why was he looking at his wife with plain
+signs of embarrassment in his face? Sydney piteously persisted in
+repeating her innocent question: "I hope I haven't done anything
+to offend you?"
+
+He seemed to be still reluctant to notice her--on the one
+occasion of all others when she was looking her best! But he
+answered at last.
+
+"My dear child, it is impossible that you should offend me; you
+have misunderstood and mistaken me. Don't suppose--pray don't
+suppose that I am changed or can ever be changed toward you."
+
+He emphasized the kind intention which those words revealed by
+giving her his hand.
+
+But the next moment he drew back. There was no disguising it, he
+drew back as if he wished to get away from her. She noticed that
+his lips were firmly closed and his eyebrows knitted in a frown;
+he looked like a man who was forcing himself to submit to some
+hard necessity that he hated or feared.
+
+Sydney left the room in despair.
+
+He had denied in the plainest and kindest terms that he was
+changed toward her. Was that not enough? It was nothing like
+enough. The facts were there to speak for themselves: he was an
+altered man; anxiety, sorrow, remorse--one or the other seemed to
+have got possession of him. Judging by Mrs. Linley's gayety of
+manner, his wife could not possibly have been taken into his
+confidence.
+
+What did it mean? Oh, the useless, hopeless question! And yet,
+again and again she asked herself: what did it mean?
+
+In bewildered wretchedness she lingered on the way to her room,
+and stopped at the end of a corridor.
+
+On her right hand, a broad flight of old oak stairs led to the
+bed-chambers on the second floor of the house. On her left hand,
+an open door showed the stone steps which descended to the
+terrace and the garden. The moonlight lay in all its loveliness
+on the flower-beds and the grass, and tempted her to pause and
+admire it. A prospect of sleepless misery was the one prospect
+before her that Sydney could see, if she retired to rest. The
+cool night air came freshly up the vaulted tunnel in which the
+steps were set; the moonlit garden offered its solace to the
+girl's sore heart. No curious women-servants appeared on the
+stairs that led to the bed-chambers. No inquisitive eyes could
+look at her from the windows of the ground floor--a solitude
+abandoned to the curiosity of tourists. Sydney took her hat and
+cloak from the stand in a recess at the side of the door, and
+went into the garden.
+
+
+Chapter VIII.
+
+Mrs. Presty Makes a Discovery.
+
+
+The dinner-party had come to an end; the neighbors had taken
+their departure; and the ladies at Mount Morven had retired
+for the night.
+
+On the way to her room Mrs. Presty knocked at her daughter's
+door. "I want to speak to you, Catherine. Are you in bed?"
+
+"No, mamma. Come in."
+
+Robed in a dressing-gown of delicately-mingled white and blue,
+and luxuriously accommodated on the softest pillows that could be
+placed in an armchair, Mrs. Linley was meditating on the events
+of the evening. "This has been the most successful party we have
+ever given," she said to her mother. "And did you notice how
+charmingly pretty Miss Westerfield looked in her new dress?"
+
+"It's about that girl I want to speak to you," Mrs. Presty
+answered, severely. "I had a higher opinion of her when she first
+came here than I have now."
+
+Mrs. Linley pointed to an open door, communicating with a second
+and smaller bed-chamber. "Not quite so loud," she answered, "or
+you might wake Kitty. What has Miss Westerfield done to forfeit
+your good opinion?"
+
+Discreet Mrs. Presty asked leave to return to the subject at a
+future opportunity.
+
+"I will merely allude now," she said, "to a change for the worse
+in your governess, which you might have noticed when she left the
+drawing-room this evening. She had a word or two with Herbert at
+the door; and she left him looking as black as thunder."
+
+Mrs. Linley laid herself back on her pillows and burst out
+laughing. "Black as thunder? Poor little Sydney, what a
+ridiculous description of her! I beg your pardon, mamma; don't be
+offended."
+
+"On the contrary, my dear, I am agreeably surprised. Your poor
+father--a man of remarkable judgment on most subjects--never
+thought much of your intelligence. He appears to have been wrong;
+you have evidently inherited some of my sense of humor. However,
+that is not what I wanted to say; I am the bearer of good news.
+When we find it necessary to get rid of Miss Westerfield--"
+
+Mrs. Linley's indignation expressed itself by a look which, for
+the moment at least, reduced her mother to silence. Always equal
+to the occasion, however, Mrs. Presty's face assumed an
+expression of innocent amazement, which would have produced a
+round of applause on the stage. "What have I said to make you
+angry?" she inquired. "Surely, my dear, you and your husband are
+extraordinary people."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me, mamma, that you have said to Herbert
+what you said just now to me?"
+
+"Certainly. I mentioned it to Herbert in the course of the
+evening. He was excessively rude. He said: 'Tell Mrs. MacEdwin to
+mind her own business--and set her the example yourself.'"
+
+Mrs. Linley returned her mother's look of amazement, without her
+mother's eye for dramatic effect. "What has Mrs. MacEdwin to do
+with it?" she asked.
+
+"If you will only let me speak, Catherine, I shall be happy to
+explain myself. You saw Mrs. MacEdwin talking to me at the party.
+That good lady's head--a feeble head, as all her friends
+admit--has been completely turned by Miss Westerfield. 'The first
+duty of a governess' (this foolish woman said to me) 'is to win
+the affections of her pupils. _My_ governess has entirely failed
+to make the children like her. A dreadful temper; I have given
+her notice to leave my service. Look at that sweet girl and your
+little granddaughter! I declare I could cry when I see how they
+understand each other and love each other.' I quote our charming
+friend's nonsense, verbatim (as we used to say when we were in
+Parliament in Mr. Norman's time), for the sake of what it led to.
+If, by any lucky chance, Miss Westerfield happens to be
+disengaged in the future, Mrs. MacEdwin's house is open to
+her--at her own time, and on her own terms. I promised to speak
+to you on the subject, and I perform my promise. Think over it; I
+strongly advise you to think over it."
+
+Even Mrs. Linley's good nature declined to submit to this. "I
+shall certainly not think over what cannot possibly happen," she
+said. "Good-night, mamma."
+
+"Good-night, Catherine. Your temper doesn't seem to improve as
+you get older. Perhaps the excitement of the party has been too
+much for your nerves. Try to get some sleep before Herbert comes
+up from the smoking-room and disturbs you."
+
+Mrs. Linley refused even to let this pass unanswered. "Herbert is
+too considerate to disturb me, when his friends keep him up
+late," she said. "On those occasions, as you may see for
+yourself, he has a bed in his dressing-room."
+
+Mrs. Presty passed through the dressing-room on her way out. "A
+very comfortable-looking bed," she remarked, in a tone intended
+to reach her daughter's ears. "I wonder Herbert ever leaves it."
+
+The way to her own bed-chamber led her by the door of Sydney's
+room. She suddenly stopped; the door was not shut. This was in
+itself a suspicious circumstance.
+
+Young or old, ladies are not in the habit of sleeping with their
+bedroom doors ajar. A strict sense of duty led Mrs. Presty to
+listen outside. No sound like the breathing of a person asleep
+was to be heard. A strict sense of duty conducted Mrs. Presty
+next into the room, and even encouraged her to approach the bed
+on tip-toe. The bed was empty; the clothes had not been disturbed
+since it had been made in the morning!
+
+The old lady stepped out into the corridor in a state of
+excitement, which greatly improved her personal appearance. She
+looked almost young again as she mentally reviewed the list of
+vices and crimes which a governess might commit, who had retired
+before eleven o'clock, and was not in her bedroom at twelve. On
+further reflection, it appeared to be barely possible that Miss
+Westerfield might be preparing her pupil's exercises for the next
+day. Mrs. Presty descended to the schoolroom on the first floor.
+
+No. Here again there was nothing to see but an empty room.
+
+Where was Miss Westerfield?
+
+Was it within the limits of probability that she had been bold
+enough to join the party in the smoking-room? The bare idea was
+absurd.
+
+In another minute, nevertheless, Mrs. Presty was at the door,
+listening. The men's voices were loud: they were talking
+politics. She peeped through the keyhole; the smokers had, beyond
+all doubt, been left to themselves. If the house had not been
+full of guests, Mrs. Presty would now have raised an alarm. As
+things were, the fear of a possible scandal which the family
+might have reason to regret forced her to act with caution. In
+the suggestive retirement of her own room, she arrived at a wise
+and wary decision. Opening her door by a few inches, she placed a
+chair behind the opening in a position which commanded a view of
+Sydney's room. Wherever the governess might be, her return to her
+bed-chamber, before the servants were astir in the morning, was a
+chance to be counted on. The night-lamp in the corridor was well
+alight; and a venerable person, animated by a sense of duty, was
+a person naturally superior to the seductions of sleep. Before
+taking the final precaution of extinguishing her candle, Mrs.
+Presty touched up her complexion, and resolutely turned her back
+on her nightcap. "This is a case in which I must keep up my
+dignity," she decided, as she took her place in the chair.
+
+
+
+One man in the smoking-room appeared to be thoroughly weary of
+talking politics. That man was the master of the house.
+
+Randal noticed the worn, preoccupied look in his brother's face,
+and determined to break up the meeting. The opportunity for which
+he was waiting occurred in another minute. He was asked as a
+moderate politician to decide between two guests, both members of
+Parliament, who were fast drifting into mere contradiction of
+each other's second-hand opinions. In plain terms, they stated
+the matter in dispute: "Which of our political parties deserves
+the confidence of the English people?" In plain terms, on his
+sides Randal answered: "The party that lowers the taxes." Those
+words acted on the discussion like water on a fire. As members of
+Parliament, the two contending politicians were naturally
+innocent of the slightest interest in the people or the taxes;
+they received the new idea submitted to them in helpless silence.
+Friends who were listening began to laugh. The oldest man present
+looked at his watch. In five minutes more the lights were out and
+the smoking-room was deserted.
+
+Linley was the last to retire--fevered by the combined
+influences of smoke and noise. His mind, oppressed all through
+the evening, was as ill at ease as ever. Lingering, wakeful and
+irritable, in the corridor (just as Sydney had lingered before
+him), he too stopped at the open door and admired the peaceful
+beauty of the garden.
+
+The sleepy servant, appointed to attend in the smoking room,
+asked if he should close the door. Linley answered: "Go to bed,
+and leave it to me." Still lingering at the top of the steps, he
+too was tempted by the refreshing coolness of the air. He took
+the key out of the lock; secured the door after he had passed
+through it; put the key in his pocket, and went down into the
+garden.
+
+
+Chapter IX.
+
+
+Somebody Attends to the Door.
+
+
+With slow steps Linley crossed the lawn; his mind gloomily
+absorbed in thoughts which had never before troubled his easy
+nature--thoughts heavily laden with a burden of self-reproach.
+
+Arrived at the limits of the lawn, two paths opened before him.
+One led into a quaintly pretty inclosure, cultivated on the plan
+of the old gardens at Versailles, and called the French Garden.
+The other path led to a grassy walk, winding its way capriciously
+through a thick shrubbery. Careless in what direction he turned
+his steps, Linley entered the shrubbery, because it happened to
+be nearest to him.
+
+Except at certain points, where the moonlight found its way
+through open spaces in the verdure, the grassy path which he was
+now following wound onward in shadow. How far he had advanced he
+had not noticed, when he heard a momentary rustling of leaves at
+some little distance in advance of him. The faint breeze had died
+away; the movement among the leaves had been no doubt produced by
+the creeping or the flying of some creature of the night. Looking
+up, at the moment when he was disturbed by this trifling
+incident, he noticed a bright patch of moonlight ahead as he
+advanced to a new turn in the path.
+
+The instant afterward he was startled by the appearance of a
+figure, emerging into the moonlight from the further end of the
+shrubbery, and rapidly approaching him. He was near enough to see
+that it was the figure of a woman. Was it one of the female
+servants, hurrying back to the house after an interview with a
+sweetheart? In his black evening dress, he was, in all
+probability, completely hidden by the deep shadow in which he
+stood. Would he be less likely to frighten the woman if he called
+to her than if he allowed her to come close up to him in the
+dark? He decided on calling to her.
+
+"Who is out so late?" he asked.
+
+A cry of alarm answered him. The figure stood still for a moment,
+and then turned back as if to escape him by flight.
+
+"Don't be frightened," he said. "Surely you know my voice?"
+
+The figure stood still again. He showed himself in the moonlight,
+and discovered--Sydney Westerfield.
+
+"You!" he exclaimed.
+
+She trembled; the words in which she answered him were words in
+fragments.
+
+"The garden was so quiet and pretty--I thought there would be no
+harm--please let me go back--I'm afraid I shall be shut out--"
+
+She tried to pass him. "My poor child!" he said, "what is there
+to be frightened about? I have been tempted out by the lovely
+night, like you. Take my arm. It is so close in here among the
+trees. If we go back to the lawn, the air will come to you
+freely."
+
+She took his arm; he could feel her heart throbbing against it.
+Kindly silent, he led her back to the open space. Some garden
+chairs were placed here and there; he suggested that she should
+rest for a while.
+
+"I'm afraid I shall be shut out," she repeated. "Pray let me get
+back."
+
+He yielded at once to the wish that she expressed. "You must let
+me take you back," he explained. "They are all asleep at the
+house by this time. No! no! don't be frightened again. I have got
+the key of the door. The moment I have opened it, you shall go in
+by yourself."
+
+She looked at him gratefully. "You are not offended with me now,
+Mr. Linley," she said. "You are like your kind self again ."
+
+They ascended the steps which led to the door. Linley took the
+key from his pocket. It acted perfectly in drawing back the lock;
+but the door, when he pushed it, resisted him. He put his
+shoulder against it, and exerted his strength, helped by his
+weight. The door remained immovable.
+
+Had one of the servants--sitting up later than usual after the
+party, and not aware that Mr. Linley had gone into the
+garden--noticed the door, and carefully fastened the bolts on the
+inner side? That was exactly what had happened.
+
+There was nothing for it but to submit to circumstances. Linley
+led the way down the steps again. "We are shut out," he said.
+
+Sydney listened in silent dismay. He seemed to be merely amused;
+he treated their common misfortune as lightly as if it had been a
+joke.
+
+"There's nothing so very terrible in our situation," he reminded
+her. "The servants' offices will be opened between six and seven
+o'clock; the weather is perfect; and the summer-house in the
+French Garden has one easy-chair in it, to my certain knowledge,
+in which you may rest and sleep. I'm sure you must be tired--let
+me take you there."
+
+She drew back, and looked up at the house.
+
+"Can't we make them hear us?" she asked.
+
+"Quite impossible. Besides--" He was about to remind her of the
+evil construction which might be placed on their appearance
+together, returning from the garden at an advanced hour of the
+night; but her innocence pleaded with him to be silent. He only
+said, "You forget that we all sleep at the top of our old castle.
+There is no knocker to the door, and no bell that rings upstairs.
+Come to the summer-house. In an hour or two more we shall see the
+sun rise."
+
+She took his arm in silence. They reached the French Garden
+without another word having passed between them.
+
+The summer-house had been designed, in harmony with the French
+taste of the last century, from a classical model. It was a rough
+copy in wood of The Temple of Vesta at Rome. Opening the door for
+his companion, Linley paused before he followed her in. A girl
+brought up by a careful mother would have understood and
+appreciated his hesitation; she would have concealed any feeling
+of embarrassment that might have troubled her at the moment, and
+would have asked him to come back and let her know when the
+rising of the sun began. Neglected by her mother, worse than
+neglected by her aunt, Sydney's fearless ignorance put a question
+which would have lowered the poor girl cruelly in the estimation
+of a stranger. "Are you going to leave me here by myself?" she
+asked. "Why don't you come in?"
+
+Linley thought of his visit to the school, and remembered the
+detestable mistress. He excused Sydney; he felt for her. She held
+the door open for him. Sure of himself, he entered the
+summer-house.
+
+As a mark of respect on her part, she offered the armchair to
+him: it was the one comfortable seat in the neglected place. He
+insisted that she should take it; and, searching the
+summer-house, found a wooden stool for himself. The small
+circular room received but little of the dim outer light--they
+were near each other--they were silent. Sydney burst suddenly
+into a nervous little laugh.
+
+"Why do you laugh?" he asked good-humoredly.
+
+"It seems so strange, Mr. Linley, for us to be out here." In the
+moment when she made that reply her merriment vanished; she
+looked out sadly, through the open door, at the stillness of the
+night. "What should I have done," she wondered, "if I had been
+shut out of the house by myself?" Her eyes rested on him timidly;
+there was some thought in her which she shrank from expressing.
+She only said: "I wish I knew how to be worthy of your kindness."
+
+Her voice warned him that she was struggling with strong emotion.
+In one respect, men are all alike; they hate to see a woman in
+tears. Linley treated her like a child; he smiled, and patted her
+on the shoulder. "Nonsense!" he said gayly. "There is no merit in
+being kind to my good little governess."
+
+She took that comforting hand--it was a harmless impulse that she
+was unable to resist--she bent over it, and kissed it gratefully.
+He drew his hand away from her as if the soft touch of her lips
+had been fire that burned it. "Oh," she cried, "have I done
+wrong?"
+
+"No, my dear--no, no."
+
+There was an embarrassment in his manner, the inevitable result
+of his fear of himself if he faltered in the resolute exercise of
+self-restraint, which was perfectly incomprehensible to Sydney.
+He moved his seat back a little, so as to place himself further
+away. Something in that action, at that time, shocked and
+humiliated her. Completely misunderstanding him, she thought he
+was reminding her of the distance that separated them in social
+rank. Oh, the shame of it! the shame of it! Would other
+governesses have taken a liberty with their master? A fit of
+hysterical sobbing burst its way through her last reserves of
+self-control; she started to her feet, and ran out of the
+summer-house.
+
+Alarmed and distressed, he followed her instantly.
+
+She was leaning against the pedestal of a statue in the garden,
+panting, shuddering, a sight to touch the heart of a far less
+sensitive man than the man who now approached her. "Sydney!" he
+said. "Dear little Sydney!" She tried to speak to him in return.
+Breath and strength failed her together; she lifted her hand,
+vainly grasping at the broad pedestal behind her; she would have
+fallen if he had not caught her in his arms. Her head sank
+faintly backward on his breast. He looked at the poor little
+tortured face, turned up toward him in the lovely moonlight.
+Again and again he had honorably restrained himself--he was
+human; he was a man--in one mad moment it was done, hotly,
+passionately done--he kissed her.
+
+For the first time in her maiden's life, a man's lips touched her
+lips. All that had been perplexing and strange, all that had been
+innocently wonderful to herself in the feeling that bound Sydney
+to her first friend, was a mystery no more. Love lifted its veil,
+Nature revealed its secrets, in the one supreme moment of that
+kiss. She threw her arms around his neck with a low cry of
+delight--and returned his kiss.
+
+"Sydney," he whispered, "I love you."
+
+She heard him in rapturous silence. Her kiss had answered for
+her.
+
+At that crisis in their lives, they were saved by an accident; a
+poor little common accident that happens every day. The spring in
+the bracelet that Sydney wore gave way as she held him to her;
+the bright trinket fell on the grass at her feet. The man never
+noticed it. The woman saw her pretty ornament as it dropped from
+her arm--saw, and remembered Mrs. Linley's gift.
+
+Cold and pale--with horror of herself confessed in the action,
+simple as it was--she drew back from him in dead silence.
+
+He was astounded. In tones that trembled with agitation, he said
+to her: "Are you ill?"
+
+"Shameless and wicked," she answered. "Not ill." She pointed to
+the bracelet on the grass. "Take it up; I am not fit to touch it.
+Look on the inner side."
+
+He remembered the inscription: "To Sydney Westerfield, with
+Catherine Linley's love." His head sank on his breast; he
+understood her at last. "You despise me," he said, "and I deserve
+it."
+
+"No; I despise myself. I have lived among vile people; and I am
+vile like them."
+
+She moved a few steps away with a heavy sigh. "Kitty!" she said
+to herself. "Poor little Kitty!"
+
+He followed her. "Why are you thinking of the child," he asked,
+"at such a time as this?"
+
+She replied without returning or looking round; distrust of
+herself had inspired her with terror of Linley, from the time
+when the bracelet had dropped on the grass.
+
+"I can make but one atonement," she said. "We must see each other
+no more. I must say good-by to Kitty--I must go. Help me to
+submit to my hard lot--I must go."
+
+He set her no example of resignation; he shrank from the prospect
+that she presented to him.
+
+"Where are you to go if you leave us?" he asked.
+
+"Away from England! The further away from _you_ the better for
+both of us. Help me with your interest; have me sent to the new
+world in the west, with other emigrants. Give me something to
+look forward to that is not shame and despair. Let me do
+something that is innocent and good--I may find a trace of my
+poor lost brother. Oh, let me go! Let me go!"
+
+Her resolution shamed him. He rose to her level, in spite of
+himself.
+
+"I dare not tell you that you are wrong," he said. "I only ask
+you to wait a little till we are calmer, before you speak of the
+future again." He pointed to the summer-house. "Go in, my poor
+girl. Rest, and compose yourself, while I try to think."
+
+He left her, and paced up and down the formal walks in the
+garden. Away from the maddening fascination of her presence, his
+mind grew clearer. He resisted the temptation to think of her
+tenderly; he set himself to consider what it would be well to do
+next.
+
+The moonlight was seen no more. Misty and starless, the dark sky
+spread its majestic obscurity over the earth. Linley looked
+wearily toward the eastern heaven. The darkness daunted him; he
+saw in it the shadow of his own sense of guilt. The gray
+glimmering of dawn, the songs of birds when the pure light softly
+climbed the sky, roused and relieved him. With the first radiant
+rising of the sun he returned to the summer-house.
+
+"Do I disturb you?" he asked, waiting at the door.
+
+"No."
+
+"Will you come out and speak to me?"
+
+She appeared at the door, waiting to hear what he had to say to
+her.
+
+"I must ask you to submit to a sacrifice of your own feelings,"
+he began. "When I kept away from you in the drawing room, last
+night--when my strange conduct made you fear that you had
+offended me--I was trying to remember what I owed to my good
+wife. I have been thinking of her again. We must spare her a
+discovery too terrible to be endured, while her attention is
+claimed by the guests who are now in the house. In a week's time
+they will leave us. Will you consent to keep up appearances? Will
+you live with us as usual, until we are left by ourselves?"
+
+"It shall be done, Mr. Linley. I only ask one favor of you. My
+worst enemy is my own miserable wicked heart. Oh, don't you
+understand me? I am ashamed to look at you!"
+
+He had only to examine his own heart, and to know what she meant.
+"Say no more," he answered sadly. "We will keep as much away from
+each other as we can."
+
+She shuddered at that open recognition of the guilty love which
+united them, in spite of their horror of it, and took refuge from
+him in the summer-house. Not a word more passed between them
+until the unbarring of doors was heard in the stillness of the
+morning, and the smoke began to rise from the kitchen chimney.
+Then he returned, and spoke to her.
+
+"You can get back to the house," he said. "Go up by the front
+stairs, and you will not meet the servants at this early hour. If
+they do see you, you have your cloak on; they will think you have
+been in the garden earlier than usual. As you pass the upper
+door, draw back the bolts quietly, and I can let myself in."
+
+She bent her head in silence. He looked after her as she hastened
+away from him over the lawn; conscious of admiring her, conscious
+of more than he dared realize to himself. When she disappeared,
+he turned back to wait where she had been waiting. With his sense
+of the duty he owed to his wife penitently present to his mind,
+the memory of that fatal kiss still left its vivid impression on
+him. "What a scoundrel I am!" he said to himself as he stood
+alone in the summer-house, looking at the chair which she had
+just left.
+
+
+Chapter X.
+
+
+Kitty Mentions Her Birthday.
+
+
+A clever old lady, possessed of the inestimable advantages of
+worldly experience, must submit nevertheless to the laws of
+Nature. Time and Sleep together--powerful agents in the small
+hours of the morning--had got the better of Mrs. Presty's
+resolution to keep awake. Free from discovery, Sydney ascended
+the stairs. Free from discovery, Sydney entered her own room.
+
+Half-an-hour later, Linley opened the door of his dressing-room.
+His wife was still sleeping. His mother-in-law woke two hours
+later; looked at her watch; and discovered that she had lost her
+opportunity. Other old women, under similar circumstances, might
+have felt discouraged. This old woman believed in her own
+suspicions more devoutly than ever. When the breakfast-bell rang,
+Sydney found Mrs. Presty in the corridor, waiting to say good
+morning.
+
+"I wonder what you were doing last night, when you ought to have
+been in bed?" the old lady began, with a treacherous amiability
+of manner. "Oh, I am not mistaken! your door was open, my dear,
+and I looked in."
+
+"Why did you look in, Mrs. Presty?"
+
+"My young friend, I was naturally anxious about you. I am anxious
+still. Were you in the house? or out of the house?"
+
+"I was walking in the garden," Sydney replied.
+
+"Admiring the moonlight?"
+
+"Yes; admiring the moonlight."
+
+"Alone, of course?" Sydney's friend suggested.
+
+And Sydney took refuge in prevarication. "Why should you doubt
+it?" she said.
+
+Mrs. Presty wasted no more time in asking questions. She was
+pleasantly reminded of the words of worldly wisdom which she had
+addressed to her daughter on the day of Sydney's arrival at Mount
+Morven. "The good qualities of that unfortunate young creature"
+(she had said) "can _not_ have always resisted the horrid
+temptations and contaminations about her. Hundreds of times she
+must have lied through ungovernable fear." Elevated a little
+higher than ever in her own estimation, Mrs. Presty took Sydney's
+arm, and led her down to breakfast with motherly familiarity.
+Linley met them at the foot of the stairs. His mother-in-law
+first stole a look at Sydney, and then shook hands with him
+cordially. "My dear Herbert, how pale you are! That horrid
+smoking. You look as if you had been up all night."
+
+
+
+Mrs. Linley paid her customary visit to the schoolroom that
+morning.
+
+The necessary attention to her guests had left little leisure for
+the exercise of observation at the breakfast-table; the one
+circumstance which had forced itself on her notice had been the
+boisterous gayety of her husband. Too essentially honest to
+practice deception of any kind cleverly, Linley had overacted the
+part of a man whose mind was entirely at ease. The most
+unsuspicious woman living, his wife was simply amused "How he
+does enjoy society!" she thought. "Herbert will be a young man to
+the end of his life."
+
+In the best possible spirits--still animated by her successful
+exertions to entertain her friends--Mrs. Linley opened the
+schoolroom door briskly. "How are the lessons getting on?" she
+began--and checked herself with a start, "Kitty!" she exclaimed,
+"Crying?"
+
+The child ran to her mother with tears in her eyes. "Look at Syd!
+She sulks; she cries; she won't talk to me--send for the doctor."
+
+"You tiresome child, I don't want the doctor. I'm not ill."
+
+"There, mamma!" cried Kitty. "She never scolded me before
+to-day."
+
+In other words, here was a complete reversal of the usual order
+of things in the schoolroom. Patient Sydney was out of temper;
+gentle Sydney spoke bitterly to the little friend whom she loved.
+Mrs. Linley drew a chair to the governess's side, and took her
+hand. The strangely altered girl tore her hand away and burst
+into a violent fit of crying. Puzzled and frightened, Kitty (to
+the best of a child's ability) followed her example. Mrs. Linley
+took her daughter on her knee, and gave Sydney's outbreak of
+agitation time to subside. There were no feverish appearances in
+her face, there was no feverish heat in her skin when their hands
+had touched each other for a moment. In all probability the
+mischief was nervous mischief, and the outburst of weeping was an
+hysterical effort at relief.
+
+"I am afraid, my dear, you have had a bad night," Mrs. Linley
+said.
+
+"Bad? Worse than bad!"
+
+Sydney stopped; looked at her good mistress and friend in terror;
+and made a confused effort to explain away what she had just
+said. As sensibly and kindly self-possessed as ever, Mrs. Linley
+told her that she only wanted rest and quiet. "Let me take you to
+my room," she proposed. "We will have the sofa moved into the
+balcony, and you will soon go to sleep in the delicious warm air.
+You may put away your books, Kitty; this is a holiday. Come with
+me, and be petted and spoiled by the ladies in the morning-room."
+
+Neither the governess nor the pupil was worthy of the sympathy so
+frankly offered to them. Still strangely confused, Sydney made
+commonplace apologies and asked leave to go out and walk in the
+park. Hearing this, Kitty declared that where her governess went
+she would go too. Mrs. Linley smoothed her daughter's pretty
+auburn hair, and said, playfully: "I think I ought to be
+jealous." To her surprise, Sydney looked up as if the words had
+been addressed to herself "You mustn't be fonder, my dear, of
+your governess," Mrs. Linley went on, "than you are of your
+mother." She kissed the child, and, rising to go, discovered that
+Sydney had moved to another part of the room. She was standing at
+the piano, with a page of music in her hand. The page was upside
+down--and she had placed herself in a position which concealed
+her face. Slow as Mrs. Linley was to doubt any person (more
+especially a person who interested her), she left the room with a
+vague fear of something wrong, and with a conviction that she
+would do well to consult her husband.
+
+Hearing the door close, Sydney looked round. She and Kitty were
+alone again; and Kitty was putting away her books without showing
+any pleasure at the prospect of a holiday.
+
+Sydney took the child fondly in her arms. "Would you be very
+sorry," she asked, "if I was obliged to go away, some day, and
+leave you?" Kitty turned pale with terror at the dreadful
+prospect which those words presented. "There! there! I am only
+joking," Sydney said, shocked at the effect which her attempt to
+suggest the impending separation had produced. "You shall come
+with me, darling; we will walk in the park together."
+
+Kitty's face brightened directly. She proposed extending their
+walk to the paddock, and feeding the cows. Sydney readily
+consented. Any amusement was welcome to her which diverted the
+child's attention from herself.
+
+They had been nearly an hour in the park, and were returning to
+the house through a clump of trees, when Sydney's companion,
+running on before her, cried: "Here's papa!" Her first impulse
+was to draw back behind a tree, in the hope of escaping notice.
+Linley sent Kitty away to gather a nosegay of daisies, and joined
+Sydney under the trees.
+
+"I have been looking for you everywhere," he said. "My wife--"
+
+Sydney interrupted him. "Discovered!" she exclaimed.
+
+"There is nothing that need alarm you," he replied. "Catherine is
+too good and too true herself to suspect others easily. She sees
+a change in you that she doesn't understand--she asks if I have
+noticed it--and that is all. But her mother has the cunning of
+the devil. There is a serious reason for controlling yourself."
+
+He spoke so earnestly that he startled her. "Are you angry with
+me?" she asked.
+
+"Angry! Does the man live who could be angry with you?"
+
+"It might be better for both of us if you _were_ angry with me. I
+have to control myself; I will try again. Oh, if you only knew
+what I suffer when Mrs. Linley is kind to me!"
+
+He persisted in trying to rouse her to a sense of the danger that
+threatened them, while the visitors remained in the house. "In a
+few days, Sydney, there will be no more need for the deceit that
+is now forced on us. Till that time comes, remember--Mrs. Presty
+suspects us."
+
+Kitty ran back to them with her hands full of daisies before they
+could say more.
+
+"There is your nosegay, papa. No; I don't want you to thank me--I
+want to know what present you are going to give me." Her father's
+mind was preoccupied; he looked at her absently. The child's
+sense of her own importance was wounded: she appealed to her
+governess. "Would you believe it?" she asked. "Papa has forgotten
+that next Tuesday is my birthday!"
+
+"Very well, Kitty; I must pay the penalty of forgetting. What
+present would you like to have?"
+
+"I want a doll's perambulator."
+
+"Ha! In my time we were satisfied with a doll."
+
+They all three looked round. Another person had suddenly joined
+in the talk. There was no mistaking the person's voice: Mrs.
+Presty appeared among the trees, taking a walk in the park. Had
+she heard what Linley and the governess had said to each other
+while Kitty was gathering daisies?
+
+"Quite a domestic scene!" the sly old lady remarked. "Papa,
+looking like a saint in a picture, with flowers in his hand.
+Papa's spoiled child always wanting something, and always getting
+it. And papa's governess, so sweetly fresh and pretty that I
+should certainly fall in love with her, if I had the advantage of
+being a man. You have no doubt remarked Herbert--I think I hear
+the bell; shall we go to lunch?--you have no doubt, I say,
+remarked what curiously opposite styles Catherine and Miss
+Westerfield present; so charming, and yet such complete
+contrasts. I wonder whether they occasionally envy each other's
+good looks? Does my daughter ever regret that she is not Miss
+Westerfield? And do you, my dear, some times wish you were Mrs.
+Linley?"
+
+"While we are about it, let me put a third question," Linley
+interposed. "Are you ever aware of it yourself, Mrs. Presty, when
+you are talking nonsense?"
+
+He was angry, and he showed it in that feeble reply. Sydney felt
+the implied insult offered to her in another way. It roused her
+to the exercise of self-control as nothing had roused her yet.
+She ignored Mrs. Presty's irony with a composure worthy of Mrs.
+Presty herself. "Where is the woman," she said, "who would _not_
+wish to be as beautiful as Mrs. Linley--and as good?"
+
+"Thank you, my dear, for a compliment to my daughter: a sincere
+compliment, no doubt. It comes in very neatly and nicely," Mrs.
+Presty acknowledged, "after my son-in-law's little outbreak of
+temper. My poor Herbert, when will you understand that I mean no
+harm? I am an essentially humorous person; my wonderful spirits
+are always carrying me away. I do assure you, Miss Westerfield, I
+don't know what worry is. My troubles--deaths in the family, and
+that sort of thing--seem to slip off me in a most remarkable
+manner. Poor Mr. Norman used to attribute it to my excellent
+digestion. My second husband would never hear of such an
+explanation as that. His high ideal of women shrank from
+allusions to stomachs. He used to speak so nicely (quoting some
+poet) of the sunshine of my breast. Vague, perhaps," said Mrs.
+Presty, modestly looking down at the ample prospect of a personal
+nature which presented itself below her throat, "but so
+flattering to one's feelings. There's the luncheon bell again, I
+declare! I'll run on before and tell them you are coming. Some
+people might say they wished to be punctual. I am truth itself,
+and I own I don't like to be helped to the underside of the fish.
+_Au revoir!_ Do you remember, Miss Westerfield, when I asked you
+to repeat _au revoir_ as a specimen of your French? I didn't
+think much of your accent. Oh, dear me, I didn't think much of
+your accent!"
+
+Kitty looked after her affluent grandmother with eyes that stared
+respectfully in ignorant admiration. She pulled her father's
+coat-tail, and addressed herself gravely to his private ear. "Oh,
+papa, what noble words grandmamma has!"
+
+
+
+Chapter Xl.
+
+
+
+Linley Asserts His Authority.
+
+
+On the evening of Monday in the new week, the last of the
+visitors had left Mount Morven. Mrs. Linley dropped into a chair
+(in, what Randal called, "the heavenly tranquillity of the
+deserted drawing-room") and owned that the effort of entertaining
+her guests had completely worn her out. "It's too absurd, at my
+time of life," she said with a faint smile; "but I am really and
+truly so tired that I must go to bed before dark, as if I was a
+child again."
+
+Mrs. Presty--maliciously observant of the governess, sitting
+silent and apart in a corner--approached her daughter in a hurry;
+to all appearance with a special object in view. Linley was at no
+loss to guess what that object might be. "Will you do me a favor,
+Catherine?" Mrs. Presty began. "I wish to say a word to you in
+your own room."
+
+"Oh, mamma, have some mercy on me, and put it off till
+to-morrow!"
+
+Mrs. Presty reluctantly consented to this proposal, on one
+condition. "It is understood," she stipulated "that I am to see
+you the first thing in the morning?"
+
+Mrs. Linley was ready to accept that condition, or any condition,
+which promised her a night of uninterrupted repose. She crossed
+the room to her husband, and took his arm. "In my state of
+fatigue, Herbert, I shall never get up our steep stairs, unless
+you help me."
+
+As they ascended the stairs together, Linley found that his wife
+had a reason of her own for leaving the drawing-room.
+
+"I am quite weary enough to go to bed," she explained. "But I
+wanted to speak to you first. It's about Miss Westerfield. (No,
+no, we needn't stop on the landing.) Do you know, I think I have
+found out what has altered our little governess so strangely--I
+seem to startle you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I am only astonished," Mrs. Linley resumed, "at my own stupidity
+in not having discovered it before. We must be kinder than ever
+to the poor girl now; can't you guess why? My dear, how dull you
+are! Must I remind you that we have had two single men among our
+visitors? One of them is old and doesn't matter. But the other--I
+mean Sir George, of course--is young, handsome, and agreeable. I
+am so sorry for Sydney Westerfield. It's plain to me that she is
+hopelessly in love with a man who has run through his fortune,
+and must marry money if he marries at all. I shall speak to
+Sydney to-morrow; and I hope and trust I shall succeed in winning
+her confidence. Thank Heaven, here we are at my door at last! I
+can't say more now; I'm ready to drop. Good-night, dear; you look
+tired, too. It's a nice thing to have friends, I know; but, oh,
+what a relief it is sometimes to get rid of them!"
+
+She kissed him, and let him go.
+
+Left by himself, to compare his wife's innocent mistake with the
+terrible enlightenment that awaited her, Linley's courage failed
+him. He leaned on the quaintly-carved rail that protected the
+outer side of the landing, and looked down at the stone hall far
+below. If the old woodwork (he thought) would only give way under
+his weight, there would be an escape from the coming catastrophe,
+found in an instant.
+
+A timely remembrance of Sydney recalled him to himself. For her
+sake, he was bound to prevent Mrs. Presty's contemplated
+interview with his wife on the next morning.
+
+Descending the stairs, he met his brother in the corridor on the
+first floor.
+
+"The very man I want to see," Randal said. "Tell me, Herbert,
+what is the matter with that curious old woman?"
+
+"Do you mean Mrs. Presty?"
+
+"Yes. She has just been telling me that our friend Mrs. MacEdwin
+has taken a fancy to Miss Westerfield, and would be only too glad
+to deprive us of our pretty governess."
+
+"Did Mrs. Presty say that in Miss Westerfield's presence?"
+
+"No. Soon after you and Catherine left the room, Miss Westerfield
+left it too. I daresay I am wrong, for I haven't had time to
+think of it; but Mrs. Presty's manner suggested to me that she
+would be glad to see the poor girl sent out of the house."
+
+"I am going to speak to her, Randal, on that very subject. Is she
+still in the drawing-room?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did she say anything more to you?"
+
+"I didn't give her the chance; I don't like Mrs. Presty. You look
+worn and worried, Herbert. Is there anything wrong?"
+
+"If there is, my dear fellow, you will hear of it tomorrow."
+
+So they parted.
+
+Comfortably established in the drawing-room, Mrs. Presty had just
+opened her favorite newspaper. Her only companion was Linley's
+black poodle, resting at her feet. On the opening of the door,
+the dog rose--advanced to caress his master--and looked up in
+Linley's face. If Mrs. Presty's attention had happened to be
+turned that way, she might have seen, in the faithful creature's
+sudden and silent retreat, a warning of her son-in-law's humor at
+that moment. But she was, or assumed to be, interested in her
+reading; and she deliberately overlooked Linley's appearance.
+After waiting a little to attract her attention, he quietly took
+the newspaper out of her hand.
+
+"What does this mean?" Mrs. Presty asked.
+
+"It means, ma'am, that I have something to say to you."
+
+"Apparently, something that can't be said with common civility?
+Be as rude as you please; I am well used to it."
+
+Linley wisely took no notice of this.
+
+"Since you have lived at Mount Morven," he proceeded, "I think
+you have found me, on the whole, an easy man to get on with. At
+the same time, when I do make up my mind to be master
+in my own house, I _am_ master."
+
+Mrs. Presty crossed her hands placidly on her lap, and asked:
+"Master of what?"
+
+"Master of your suspicions of Miss Westerfield. You are free, of
+course, to think of her and of me as you please. What I forbid is
+the expression of your thoughts--either by way of hints to my
+brother, or officious communications with my wife. Don't suppose
+that I am afraid of the truth. Mrs. Linley shall know more than
+you think for, and shall know it to-morrow; not from you, but
+from me."
+
+Mrs. Presty shook her head compassionately. "My good sir, surely
+you know me too well to think that I am to be disposed of in that
+easy way? Must I remind you that your wife's mother has 'the
+cunning of the devil'?"
+
+Linley recognized his own words. "So you were listening among the
+trees!" he said.
+
+"Yes; I was listening; and I have only to regret that I didn't
+hear more. Let us return to our subject. I don't trust my
+daughter's interests--my much-injured daughter's interests--in
+your hands. They are not clean hands, Mr. Linley. I have a duty
+to do; and I shall do it to-morrow."
+
+"No, Mrs. Presty, you won't do it to-morrow."
+
+"Who will prevent me?"
+
+"I shall prevent you."
+
+"In what way, if you please?"
+
+"I don't think it necessary to answer that question. My servants
+will have their instructions; and I shall see myself that my
+orders are obeyed."
+
+"Thank you. I begin to understand; I am to be turned out of the
+house. Very well. We shall see what my daughter says."
+
+"You know as well as I do, Mrs. Presty, that if your daughter is
+forced to choose between us she will decide for her husband. You
+have the night before you for consideration. I have no more to
+say."
+
+Among Mrs. Presty's merits, it is only just to reckon a capacity
+for making up her mind rapidly, under stress of circumstances.
+Before Linley had opened the door, on his way out, he was called
+back.
+
+"I am shocked to trouble you again," Mrs. Presty said, "but I
+don't propose to interfere with my night's rest by thinking about
+_you_. My position is perfectly clear to me, without wasting time
+in consideration. When a man so completely forgets what is due to
+the weaker sex as to threaten a woman, the woman has no
+alternative but to submit. You are aware that I had arranged to
+see my daughter to-morrow morning. I yield to brute force, sir.
+Tell your wife that I shall not keep my appointment. Are you
+satisfied?"
+
+"Quite satisfied," Linley said--and left the room.
+
+His mother-in-law looked after him with a familiar expression of
+opinion, and a smile of supreme contempt.
+
+"You fool!"
+
+Only two words; and yet there seemed to be some hidden meaning in
+them--relating perhaps to what might happen on the next
+day--which gently tickled Mrs. Presty in the region assigned by
+phrenologists to the sense of self-esteem.
+
+
+
+Chapter XII.
+
+
+Two of Them Sleep Badly.
+
+Waiting for Sydney to come into the bedroom as usual and wish her
+good-night, Kitty was astonished by the appearance of her
+grandmother, entering on tiptoe from the corridor, with a small
+paper parcel in her hand.
+
+"Whisper!" said Mrs. Presty, pointing to the open door of
+communication with Mrs. Linley's room. "This is your birthday
+present. You mustn't look at it till you wake to-morrow morning."
+She pushed the parcel under the pillow--and, instead of saying
+good-night, took a chair and sat down.
+
+"May I show my present," Kitty asked, "when I go to mamma in the
+morning?"
+
+The present hidden under the paper wrapper was a sixpenny
+picture-book. Kitty's grandmother disapproved of spending money
+lavishly on birthday gifts to children. "Show it, of course; and
+take the greatest care of it," Mrs. Presty answered gravely. "But
+tell me one thing, my dear, wouldn't you like to see all your
+presents early in the morning, like mine?"
+
+Still smarting under the recollection of her interview with her
+son-in-law, Mrs. Presty had certain ends to gain in putting this
+idea into the child's head. It was her special object to raise
+domestic obstacles to a private interview between the husband and
+wife during the earlier hours of the day. If the gifts, usually
+presented after the nursery dinner, were produced on this
+occasion after breakfast, there would be a period of delay before
+any confidential conversation could take place between Mr. and
+Mrs. Linley. In this interval Mrs. Presty saw her opportunity of
+setting Linley's authority at defiance, by rousing the first
+jealous suspicion in the mind of his wife.
+
+Innocent little Kitty became her grandmother's accomplice on the
+spot. "I shall ask mamma to let me have my presents at
+breakfast-time," she announced.
+
+"And kind mamma will say Yes," Mrs. Presty chimed in. "We will
+breakfast early, my precious child. Good-night."
+
+Kitty was half asleep when her governess entered the room
+afterward, much later than usual. "I thought you had forgotten
+me," she said, yawning and stretching out her plump little arms.
+
+Sydney's heart ached when she thought of the separation that was
+to come with the next day; her despair forced its way to
+expression in words.
+
+"I wish I could forget you," she answered, in reckless
+wretchedness.
+
+The child was still too drowsy to hear plainly. "What did you
+say?" she asked. Sydney gently lifted her in the bed, and kissed
+her again and again. Kitty's sleepy eyes opened in surprise. "How
+cold your hands are!" she said; "and how often you kiss me. What
+is it you have come to say to me--good-night or good-by?"
+
+Sydney laid her down again on the pillow, gave her a last kiss,
+and ran out of the room.
+
+In the corridor she heard Linley's voice on the lower floor. He
+was asking one of the servants if Miss Westerfield was in the
+house or in the garden. Her first impulse was to advance to the
+stairs and to answer his question. In a moment more the
+remembrance of Mrs. Linley checked her. She went back to her
+bed-chamber. The presents that she had received, since her
+arrival at Mount Morven, were all laid out so that they could be
+easily seen by any person entering the room, after she had left
+the house. On the sofa lay the pretty new dress which she had
+worn at the evening party. Other little gifts were arranged on
+either side of it. The bracelet, resting on the pedestal of a
+statue close by, kept a morsel of paper in its place--on which
+she had written a few penitent words of farewell addressed to
+Mrs. Linley. On the toilet-table three photographic portraits
+showed themselves among the brushes and combs. She sat down, and
+looked first at the likenesses of Mrs. Linley and Kitty.
+
+Had she any right to make those dear faces her companions in the
+future?
+
+She hesitated; her tears dropped on the photographs. "They're as
+good as spoiled now," she thought; "they're no longer fit for
+anybody but me." She paused, and abruptly took up the third and
+last photograph--the likeness of Herbert Linley.
+
+Was it an offense, now, even to look at his portrait? No idea of
+leaving it behind her was in her mind. Her resolution vibrated
+between two miseries--the misery of preserving her keep-sake
+after she had parted from him forever, and the misery of
+destroying it. Resigned to one more sacrifice, she took the card
+in both hands to tear it up. It would have been scattered in
+pieces on the floor, but for the chance which had turned the
+portrait side of the card toward her instead of the back. Her
+longing eyes stole a last look at him--a frenzy seized her--she
+pressed her lips to the photograph in a passion of hopeless love.
+"What does it matter?" she asked herself. "I'm nothing but the
+ignorant object of his kindness--the poor fool who could see no
+difference between gratitude and love. Where is the harm of
+having him with me when I am starving in the streets, or dying in
+the workhouse?" The fervid spirit in her that had never known a
+mother's loving discipline, never thrilled to the sympathy of a
+sister-friend, rose in revolt against the evil destiny which had
+imbittered her life. Her eyes still rested on the photograph.
+"Come to my heart, my only friend, and kill me!" As those wild
+words escaped her, she thrust the card furiously into the bosom
+of her dress--and threw herself on the floor. There was something
+in the mad self-abandonment of that action which mocked the
+innocent despair of her childhood, on the day when her mother
+left her at the cruel mercy of her aunt.
+
+That night was a night of torment in secret to another person at
+Mount Morven.
+
+Wandering, in his need of self-isolation, up and down the dreary
+stone passages in the lower part of the house, Linley counted the
+hours, inexorably lessening the interval between him and the
+ordeal of confession to his wife. As yet, he had failed to find
+the opportunity of addressing to Sydney the only words of
+encouragement he could allow to pass his lips: he had asked for
+her earlier in the evening, and nobody could tell him where she
+was. Still in ignorance of the refuge which she might by bare
+possibility hope to find in Mrs. MacEdwin's house, Sydney was
+spared the torturing doubts which now beset Herbert Linley's
+mind. Would the noble woman whom they had injured allow their
+atonement to plead for them, and consent to keep their miserable
+secret? Might they still put their trust in that generous nature
+a few hours hence? Again and again those questions confronted
+Linley; and again and again he shrank from attempting to answer
+them.
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII.
+
+
+Kitty Keeps Her Birthday.
+
+They were all assembled as usual at the breakfast-table.
+
+Preferring the request suggested to her by Mrs. Presty, Kitty had
+hastened the presentation of the birthday gifts, by getting into
+her mother's bed in the morning, and exacting her mother's
+promise before she would consent to get out again. By her own
+express wish, she was left in ignorance of what the presents
+would prove to be. "Hide them from me," said this young epicure
+in pleasurable sensations, "and make me want to see them until I
+can bear it no longer." The gifts had accordingly been collected
+in an embrasure of one of the windows; and the time had now
+arrived when Kitty could bear it no longer.
+
+In the procession of the presents, Mrs. Linley led the way.
+
+She had passed behind the screen which had thus far protected the
+hidden treasures from discovery, and appeared again with a vision
+of beauty in the shape of a doll. The dress of this wonderful
+creature exhibited the latest audacities of French fashion. Her
+head made a bow; her eyes went to sleep and woke again; she had a
+voice that said two words--more precious than two thousand in the
+mouth of a mere living creature. Kitty's arms opened and embraced
+her gift with a scream of ecstasy. That fervent pressure found
+its way to the right spring. The doll squeaked: "Mamma!"--and
+creaked--and cried again--and said: "Papa!" Kitty sat down on the
+floor; her legs would support her no longer. "I think I shall
+faint," she said quite seriously.
+
+In the midst of the general laughter, Sydney silently placed a
+new toy (a pretty little imitation of a jeweler's casket) at
+Kitty's side, and drew back before the child could look at her.
+Mrs. Presty was the only person present who noticed her pale face
+and the trembling of her hands as she made the effort which
+preserved her composure.
+
+The doll's necklace, bracelets, and watch and chain, riveted
+Kitty's attention on the casket. Just as she thought of looking
+round for her dear Syd, her father produced a new outburst of
+delight by presenting a perambulator worthy of the doll. Her
+uncle followed with a parasol, devoted to the preservation of the
+doll's complexion when she went out for an airing. Then there
+came a pause. Where was the generous grandmother's gift? Nobody
+remembered it; Mrs. Presty herself discovered the inestimable
+sixpenny picture-book cast away and forgotten on a distant
+window-seat. "I have a great mind to keep this," she said to
+Kitty, "till you are old enough to value it properly." In the
+moment of her absence at the window, Linley's mother-in-law lost
+the chance of seeing him whisper to Sydney. "Meet me in the
+shrubbery in half an hour," he said. She stepped back from him,
+startled by the proposal. When Mrs. Presty was in the middle of
+the room again, Linley and the governess were no longer near each
+other.
+
+Having by this time recovered herself, Kitty got on her legs.
+"Now," the spoiled child declared, addressing the company
+present, "I'm going to play."
+
+The doll was put into the perambulator, and was wheeled about the
+room, while Mrs. Linley moved the chairs out of the way, and
+Randal attended with the open parasol--under orders to "pretend
+that the sun was shining." Once more the sixpenny picture-book
+was neglected. Mrs. Presty picked it up from the floor,
+determined by this time to hold it in reserve until her
+ungrateful grandchild reached years of discretion. She put it in
+the bookcase between Byron's "Don Juan" and Butler's "Lives of
+the Saints." In the position which she now occupied, Linley was
+visible approaching Sydney again. "Your own interests are
+seriously concerned," he whispered, "in something that I have to
+tell you."
+
+Incapable of hearing what passed between them, Mrs. Presty could
+see that a secret understanding united her son-in-law and the
+governess. She looked round cautiously at Mrs. Linley.
+
+Kitty's humor had changed; she was now eager to see the doll's
+splendid clothes taken off and put on again. "Come and look at
+it," she said to Sydney; "I want you to enjoy my birthday as much
+as I do." Left by himself, Randal got rid of the parasol by
+putting it on a table near the door. Mrs. Presty beckoned to him
+to join her at the further end of the room.
+
+"I want you to do me a favor," she began.
+
+Glancing at Linley before she proceeded, Mrs. Presty took up a
+newspaper, and affected to be consulting Randal's opinion on a
+passage which had attracted her attention. "Your brother is
+looking our way," she whispered: "he mustn't suspect that there
+is a secret between us."
+
+False pretenses of any kind invariably irritated Randal. "What do
+you want me to do?" he asked sharply.
+
+The reply only increased his perplexity.
+
+"Observe Miss Westerfield and your brother. Look at them now."
+
+Randal obeyed.
+
+"What is there to look at?" he inquired.
+
+"Can't you see?"
+
+"I see they are talking to each other."
+
+"They are talking confidentially; talking so that Mrs. Linley
+can't hear them. Look again."
+
+Randal fixed his eyes on Mrs. Presty, with an expression which
+showed his dislike of that lady a little too plainly. Before he
+could answer what she had just said to him, his lively little
+niece hit on a new idea. The sun was shining, the flowers were in
+their brightest beauty--and the doll had not yet been taken into
+the garden! Kitty at once led the way out; so completely
+preoccupied in steering the perambulator in a straight course
+that she forgot her uncle and the parasol. Only waiting to remind
+her husband and Sydney that they were wasting the beautiful
+summer morning indoors, Mrs. Linley followed her daughter--and
+innocently placed a fatal obstacle in Mrs. Presty's way by
+leaving the room. Having consulted each other by a look, Linley
+and the governess went out next. Left alone with Randal, Mrs.
+Presty's anger, under the complete overthrow of her
+carefully-laid scheme, set restraint at defiance.
+
+"My daughter's married life is a wreck," she burst out, pointing
+theatrically to the door by which Linley and Sydney Westerfield
+had retired. "And Catherine has the vile creature whom your
+brother picked up in London to thank for it! Now do you
+understand me?"
+
+"Less than ever," Randal answered--"unless you have taken leave
+of your senses."
+
+Mrs. Presty recovered the command of her temper.
+
+On that fine morning her daughter might remain in the garden
+until the luncheon-bell rang. Linley had only to say that he
+wished to speak with his wife; and the private interview which he
+had so rudely insisted on as his sole privilege, would assuredly
+take place. The one chance left of still defeating him on his own
+ground was to force Randal to interfere by convincing him of his
+brother's guilt. Moderation of language and composure of manner
+offered the only hopeful prospect of reaching this end. Mrs.
+Presty assumed the disguise of patient submission, and used the
+irresistible influence of good humor and good sense.
+
+"I don't complain, dear Randal, of what you have said to me," she
+replied. "My indiscretion has deserved it. I ought to have
+produced my proofs, and have left it to you to draw the
+conclusion. Sit down, if you please. I won't detain you for more
+than a few minutes."
+
+Randal had not anticipated such moderation as this; he took the
+chair that was nearest to Mrs. Presty. They were both now sitting
+with their backs turned to the entrance from the library to the
+drawing-room.
+
+"I won't trouble you with my own impressions," Mrs. Presty went
+on. "I will be careful only to mention what I have seen and
+heard. If you refuse to believe me, I refer you to the guilty
+persons themselves."
+
+She had just got to the end of those introductory words when Mrs.
+Linley returned, by way of the library, to fetch the forgotten
+parasol.
+
+Randal insisted on making Mrs. Presty express herself plainly.
+"You speak of guilty persons," he said. "Am I to understand that
+one of those guilty persons is my brother?"
+
+Mrs. Linley advanced a step and took the parasol from the table.
+Hearing what Randal said, she paused, wondering at the strange
+allusion to her husband. In the meanwhile, Mrs. Presty answered
+the question that had been addressed to her.
+
+"Yes," she said to Randal; "I mean your brother, and your
+brother's mistress--Sydney Westerfield."
+
+Mrs. Linley laid the parasol back on the table, and approached
+them.
+
+She never once looked at her mother; her face, white and rigid,
+was turned toward Randal. To him, and to him only, she spoke.
+
+"What does my mother's horrible language mean?" she asked.
+
+Mrs. Presty triumphed inwardly; chance had decided in her favor,
+after all! "Don't you see," she said to her daughter, "that I am
+here to answer for myself?"
+
+Mrs. Linley still looked at Randal, and still spoke to him. "It
+is impossible for me to insist on an explanation from my mother,"
+she proceeded. "No matter what I may feel, I must remember that
+she _is_ my mother. I ask you again--you who have been listening
+to her--what does she mean?"
+
+Mrs. Presty's sense of her own importance refused to submit to
+being passed over in this way.
+
+"However insolently you may behave, Catherine, you will not
+succeed in provoking me. Your mother is bound to open your eyes
+to the truth. You have a rival in your husband's affections; and
+that rival is your governess. Take your own course now; I have no
+more to say." With her head high in the air--looking the picture
+of conscious virtue--the old lady walked out.
+
+At the same moment Randal seized his first opportunity of
+speaking.
+
+He addressed himself gently and respectfully to his
+sister-in-law. She refused to hear him. The indignation which
+Mrs. Presty had roused in her made no allowances, and was blind
+to all sense of right.
+
+"Don't trouble yourself to account for your silence," she said,
+most unjustly. "You were listening to my mother without a word of
+remonstrance when I came into the room. You are concerned in this
+vile slander, too."
+
+Randal considerately refrained from provoking her by attempting
+to defend himself, while she was incapable of understanding him.
+"You will be sorry when you find that you have misjudged me," he
+said, and sighed, and left her.
+
+She dropped into a chair. If there was any one distinct thought
+in her at that moment, it was the thought of her husband. She was
+eager to see him; she longed to say to him: "My love, I don't
+believe a word of it!" He was not in the garden when she had
+returned for the parasol; and Sydney was not in the garden.
+Wondering what had become of her father and her governess, Kitty
+had asked the nursemaid to look for them. What had happened
+since? Where had they been found? After some hesitation, Mrs.
+Linley sent for the nursemaid. She felt the strongest reluctance,
+when the girl appeared, to approach the very inquiries which she
+was interested in making.
+
+"Have you found Mr. Linley?" she said--with an effort.
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Where did you find him?"
+
+"In the shrubbery."
+
+"Did your master say anything?"
+
+"I slipped away, ma'am, before he saw me."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Miss Westerfield was in the shrubbery, with my master. I might
+have been mistaken--" The girl paused, and looked confused.
+
+Mrs. Linley tried to tell her to go on. The words were in her
+mind; but the capacity of giving expression to them failed her.
+She impatiently made a sign. The sign was understood.
+
+"I might have been mistaken," the maid repeated--"but I thought
+Miss Westerfield was crying."
+
+Having replied in those terms, she seemed to be anxious to get
+away. The parasol caught her eye. "Miss Kitty wants this," she
+said, "and wonders why you have not gone back to her in the
+garden. May I take the parasol?"
+
+"Take it."
+
+The tone of the mistress's voice was completely changed. The
+servant looked at her with vague misgivings. "Are you not well,
+ma'am?"
+
+"Quite well."
+
+The servant withdrew.
+
+Mrs. Linley's chair happened to be near one of the windows, which
+commanded a view of the drive leading to the main entrance of the
+house. A carriage had just arrived bringing holiday travelers to
+visit that part of Mount Morven which was open to strangers. She
+watched them as they got out, talking and laughing, and looking
+about them. Still shrinking instinctively from the first doubt of
+Herbert that had ever entered her mind, she found a refuge from
+herself in watching the ordinary events of the day. One by one
+the tourists disappeared under the portico of the front door. The
+empty carriage was driven away next, to water the horses at the
+village inn. Solitude was all she could see from the windows;
+silence, horrible silence, surrounded her out of doors and in.
+The thoughts from which she recoiled forced their way back into
+her mind; the narrative of the nursemaid's discovery became a
+burden on her memory once more. She considered the circumstances.
+In spite of herself, she considered the circumstances again. Her
+husband and Sydney Westerfield together in the shrubbery--and
+Sydney crying. Had Mrs. Presty's abominable suspicion of them
+reached their ears? or?--No! that second possibility might be
+estimated at its right value by any other woman; not by Herbert
+Linley's wife.
+
+She snatched up the newspaper, and fixed her eyes on it in the
+hope of fixing her mind on it next. Obstinately, desperately, she
+read without knowing what she was reading. The lines of print
+were beginning to mingle and grow dim, when she was startled by
+the sudden opening of the door. She looked round.
+
+Her husband entered the room.
+
+
+Chapter XIV.
+
+
+Kitty Feels the Heartache.
+
+
+Linley advanced a few steps--and stopped.
+
+His wife, hurrying eagerly to meet him, checked herself. It might
+have been distrust, or it might have been unreasoning fear--she
+hesitated on the point of approaching him.
+
+"I have something to say, Catherine, which I'm afraid will
+distress you."
+
+His voice faltered, his eyes rested on her--then looked away
+again. He said no more.
+
+He had spoken a few commonplace words--and yet he had said
+enough. She saw the truth in his eyes, heard the truth in his
+voice. A fit of trembling seized her. Linley stepped forward, in
+the fear that she might fall. She instantly controlled herself,
+and signed to him to keep back. "Don't touch me!" she said. "You
+come from Miss Westerfield!"
+
+That reproach roused him.
+
+"I own that I come from Miss Westerfield," he answered. "She
+addresses a request to you through me."
+
+"I refuse to grant it."
+
+"Hear it first."
+
+"No!"
+
+"Hear it--in your own interest. She asks permission to leave the
+house, never to return again. While she is still innocent--"
+
+His wife eyed him with a look of unutterable contempt. He
+submitted to it, but not in silence.
+
+"A man doesn't lie, Catherine, who makes such a confession as I
+am making now. Miss Westerfield offers the one atonement in her
+power, while she is still innocent of having wronged you--except
+in thought."
+
+"Is that all?" Mrs. Linley asked.
+
+"It rests with you," he replied, "to say if there is any other
+sacrifice of herself which will be more acceptable to you."
+
+"Let me understand first what the sacrifice means. Does Miss
+Westerfield make any conditions?"
+
+"She has positively forbidden me to make conditions."
+
+"And goes out into the world, helpless and friendless?"
+
+"Yes ."
+
+Even under the terrible trial that wrung her, the nobility of the
+woman's nature spoke in her next words.
+
+"Give me time to think of what you have said," she pleaded. "I
+have led a happy life; I am not used to suffer as I am suffering
+now."
+
+They were both silent. Kitty's voice was audible on the stairs
+that led to the picture-gallery, disputing with the maid. Neither
+her father nor her mother heard her.
+
+"Miss Westerfield is innocent of having wronged me, except in
+thought," Mrs. Linley resumed. "Do you tell me that on your word
+of honor?"
+
+"On my word of honor."
+
+So far his wife was satisfied. "My governess," she said, "might
+have deceived me--she has not deceived me. I owe it to her to
+remember that. She shall go, but not helpless and not
+friendless."
+
+Her husband forgot the restraints he had imposed on himself.
+
+"Is there another woman in the world like you!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Many other women," she answered, firmly. "A vulgar termagant,
+feeling a sense of injury, finds relief in an outburst of
+jealousy and a furious quarrel. You have always lived among
+ladies. Surely you ought to know that a wife in my position, who
+respects herself, restrains herself. I try to remember what I owe
+to others as well as what they owe to me."
+
+She approached the writing table, and took up a pen.
+
+Feeling his position acutely, Linley refrained from openly
+admiring her generosity. Until he had deserved to be forgiven, he
+had forfeited the right to express an opinion on her conduct. She
+misinterpreted his silence. As she understood it, he appreciated
+an act of self-sacrifice on Miss Westerfield's side--but he had
+no word of encouragement for an act of self-sacrifice on his
+wife's side. She threw down the pen, with the first outbreak of
+anger that had escaped her yet.
+
+"You have spoken for the governess," she said to him. "I haven't
+heard yet, sir, what you have to say for yourself. Is it you who
+tempted her? You know how gratefully she feels toward you--have
+you perverted her gratitude, and led her blindfold to love?
+Cruel, cruel, cruel! Defend yourself if you can."
+
+He made no reply.
+
+"Is it not worth your while to defend yourself?" she burst out,
+passionately. "Your silence is an insult!"
+
+"My silence is a confession," he answered, sadly. "_She_ may
+accept your mercy--I may not even hope for it."
+
+Something in the tone of his voice reminded her of past days--the
+days of perfect love and perfect confidence, when she had been
+the one woman in the world to him. Dearly treasured remembrances
+of her married life filled her heart with tenderness, and dimmed
+with tears the angry light that had risen in her eyes. There was
+no pride, no anger, in his wife when she spoke to him now.
+
+"Oh, my husband, has she taken your love from me?"
+
+"Judge for yourself, Catherine, if there is no proof of my love
+for you in what I have resisted--and no remembrance of all that I
+owe to you in what I have confessed."
+
+She ventured a little nearer to him. "Can I believe you?"
+
+"Put me to the test."
+
+She instantly took him at his word. "When Miss Westerfield has
+left us, promise not to see her again."
+
+"I promise."
+
+"And not even to write to her."
+
+"I promise."
+
+She went back to the writing-table. "My heart is easier," she
+said, simply. "I can be merciful to her now."
+
+After writing a few lines, she rose and handed the paper to him.
+He looked up from it in surprise. "Addressed to Mrs. MacEdwin!"
+he said.
+
+"Addressed," she answered, "to the only person I know who feels a
+true interest in Miss Westerfield. Have you not heard of it?"
+
+"I remember," he said--and read the lines that followed:
+
+"I recommend Miss Westerfield as a teacher of young children,
+having had ample proof of her capacity, industry, and good temper
+while she has been governess to my child. She leaves her
+situation in my service under circumstances which testify to her
+sense of duty and her sense of gratitude."
+
+"Have I said," she asked, "more than I could honorably and truly
+say--even after what has happened?"
+
+He could only look at her; no words could have spoken for him as
+his silence spoke for him at that moment. When she took back the
+written paper there was pardon in her eyes already.
+
+The last worst trial remained to be undergone; she faced it
+resolutely. "Tell Miss Westerfield that I wish to see her."
+
+On the point of leaving the room, Herbert was called back. "If
+you happen to meet with my mother," his wife added, "will you ask
+her to come to me?"
+
+Mrs. Presty knew her daughter's nature; Mrs. Presty had been
+waiting near at hand, in expectation of the message which she now
+received.
+
+Tenderly and respectfully, Mrs. Linley addressed herself to her
+mother. "When we last met, I thought you spoke rashly and
+cruelly. I know now that there was truth--_some_ truth, let me
+say--in what offended me at the time. If you felt strongly, it
+was for my sake. I wish to beg your pardon; I was hasty, I was
+wrong."
+
+On an occasion when she had first irritated and then surprised
+him, Randal Linley had said to Mrs. Presty, "You have got a
+heart, after all!" Her reply to her daughter showed that view of
+her character to be the right one. "Say no more, my dear," she
+answered "_I_ was hasty; _I_ was wrong."
+
+The words had barely fallen from her lips, before Herbert
+returned. He was followed by Sydney Westerfield.
+
+The governess stopped in the middle of the room. Her head sank on
+her breast; her quick convulsive breathing was the only sound
+that broke the silence. Mrs. Linley advanced to the place in
+which Sydney stood. There was something divine in her beauty as
+she looked at the shrinking girl, and held out her hand.
+
+Sydney fell on her knees. In silence she lifted that generous
+hand to her lips. In silence, Mrs. Linley raised her--took the
+writing which testified to her character from the table--and
+presented it. Linley looked at his wife, looked at the governess.
+He waited--and still neither the one nor the other uttered a
+word. It was more than he could endure. He addressed himself to
+Sydney first.
+
+"Try to thank Mrs. Linley," he said.
+
+She answered faintly: "I can't speak!"
+
+He appealed to his wife next. "Say a last kind word to her," he
+pleaded.
+
+She made an effort, a vain effort to obey him. A gesture of
+despair answered for her as Sydney had answered: "I can't speak!"
+
+True, nobly true, to the Christian virtue that repents, to the
+Christian virtue that forgives, those three persons stood
+together on the brink of separation, and forced their frail
+humanity to suffer and submit.
+
+In mercy to the woman, Linley summoned the courage to part them.
+He turned to his wife first.
+
+"I may say, Catherine, that she has your good wishes for happier
+days to come?"
+
+Mrs. Linley pressed his hand.
+
+He approached Sydney, and gave his wife's message. It was in his
+heart to add something equally kind on his own part. He could
+only say what we have all said--how sincerely, how sorrowfully,
+we all know--the common word, "Good-by!"--the common wish, "God
+bless you!"
+
+At that last moment the child ran into the room, in search of her
+mother.
+
+There was a low murmur of horror at the sight of her. That
+innocent heart, they had all hoped, might have been spared the
+misery of the parting scene!
+
+She saw that Sydney had her hat and cloak on. "You're dressed to
+go out," she said. Sydney turned away to hide her face. It was
+too late; Kitty had seen the tears. "Oh, my darling, you're not
+going away!" She looked at her father and mother. "Is she going
+away?" They were afraid to answer her. With all her little
+strength, she clasped her beloved friend and play-fellow round
+the waist. "My own dear, you're not going to leave me!" The dumb
+misery in Sydney's face struck Linley with horror. He placed
+Kitty in her mother's arms. The child's piteous cry, "Oh, don't
+let her go! don't let her go!" followed the governess as she
+suffered her martyrdom, and went out. Linley's heart ached; he
+watched her until she was lost to view. "Gone!" he murmured to
+himself--"gone forever!"
+
+Mrs. Presty heard him, and answered him:--"She'll come back
+again!"
+
+
+
+SECOND BOOK
+
+
+Chapter XV.
+
+
+The Doctor.
+
+
+As the year advanced, the servants at Mount Morven remarked that
+the weeks seemed to follow each other more slowly than usual. In
+the higher regions of the house, the same impression was
+prevalent; but the sense of dullness among the gentlefolks
+submitted to circumstances in silence.
+
+If the question had been asked in past days: Who is the brightest
+and happiest member of the family? everybody would have said:
+Kitty. If the question had been asked at the present time,
+differences of opinion might have suggested different
+answers--but the whole household would have refrained without
+hesitation from mentioning the child's name.
+
+Since Sydney Westerfield's departure Kitty had never held up her
+head.
+
+Time quieted the child's first vehement outbreak of distress
+under the loss of the companion whom she had so dearly loved.
+Delicate management, gently yet resolutely applied, held the
+faithful little creature in check, when she tried to discover the
+cause of her governess's banishment from the house. She made no
+more complaints; she asked no more embarrassing questions--but it
+was miserably plain to everybody about her that she failed to
+recover her spirits. She was willing to learn her lessons (but
+not under another governess) when her mother was able to attend
+to her: she played with her toys, and went out riding on her
+pony. But the delightful gayety of other days was gone; the
+shrill laughter that once rang through the house was heard no
+more. Kitty had become a quiet child; and, worse still, a child
+who seemed to be easily tired.
+
+The doctor was consulted.
+
+He was a man skilled in the sound medical practice that learns
+its lessons without books--bedside practice. His opinion declared
+that the child's vital power was seriously lowered. "Some cause
+is at work here," he said to the mother, "which I don't
+understand. Can you help me?" Mrs. Linley helped him without
+hesitation. "My little daughter dearly loved her governess; and
+her governess has been obliged to leave us." That was her reply.
+The doctor wanted to hear no more; he at once advised that Kitty
+should be taken to the seaside, and that everything which might
+remind her of the absent friend--books, presents, even articles
+of clothing likely to revive old associations--should be left at
+home. A new life, in new air. When pen, ink, and paper were
+offered to him, that was the doctor's prescription.
+
+Mrs. Linley consulted her husband on the choice of the seaside
+place to which the child should be removed.
+
+The blank which Sydney's departure left in the life of the
+household was felt by the master and mistress of Mount
+Morven--and felt, unhappily, without any open avowal on either
+side of what was passing in their minds. In this way the
+governess became a forbidden subject between them; the husband
+waited for the wife to set the example of approaching it, and the
+wife waited for the husband. The trial of temper produced by this
+state of hesitation, and by the secret doubts which it
+encouraged, led insensibly to a certain estrangement--which
+Linley in particular was morbidly unwilling to acknowledge. If,
+when the dinner-hour brought them together, he was silent and
+dull in his wife's presence, he attributed it to anxiety on the
+subject of his brother--then absent on a critical business errand
+in London. If he sometimes left the house the first thing in the
+morning, and only returned at night, it was because the
+management of the model farm had become one of his duties, in
+Randal's absence. Mrs. Linley made no attempt to dispute this
+view of the altered circumstances in home-life--but she submitted
+with a mind ill at ease. Secretly fearing that Linley was
+suffering under Miss Westerfield's absence, she allowed herself
+to hope that Kitty's father would see a necessity, in his own
+case, for change of scene, and would accompany them to the
+seaside.
+
+"Won't you come with us, Herbert?" she suggested, when they had
+both agreed on the choice of a place.
+
+His temper was in a state of constant irritation. Without meaning
+it he answered her harmless question sharply.
+
+"How can I go away with you, when we are losing by the farm, and
+when there is nobody to check the ruinous expenses but myself?"
+
+Mrs. Linley's thoughts naturally turned to Randal's prolonged
+absence. "What can be keeping him all this time in London?" she
+said.
+
+Linley's failing patience suffered a severe trial.
+
+"Don't you know," he broke out, "that I have inherited my poor
+mother's property in England, saddled with a lawsuit? Have you
+never heard of delays and disappointments, and quibbles and false
+pretenses, encountered by unfortunate wretches like me who are
+obliged to go to law? God only knows when Randal will be free to
+return, or what bad news he may bring with him when he does come
+back."
+
+"You have many anxieties, Herbert; and I ought to have remembered
+them."
+
+That gentle answer touched him. He made the best apology in his
+power: he said his nerves were out of order, and asked her to
+excuse him if he had spoken roughly. There was no unfriendly
+feeling on either side; and yet there was something wanting in
+the reconciliation. Mrs. Linley left her husband, shaken by a
+conflict of feelings. At one moment she felt angry with him; at
+another she felt angry with herself.
+
+With the best intentions (as usual) Mrs. Presty made mischief,
+nevertheless. Observing that her daughter was in tears, and
+feeling sincerely distressed by the discovery, she was eager to
+administer consolation. "Make your mind easy, my dear, if you
+have any doubt about Herbert's movements when he is away from
+home. I followed him myself the day before yesterday when he went
+out. A long walk for an old woman--but I can assure you that
+he does really go to the farm."
+
+Implicitly trusting her husband--and rightly trusting
+him--Linley's wife replied by a look which Mrs. Presty received
+in silent indignation. She summoned her dignity and marched out
+of the room.
+
+Five minutes afterward, Mrs. Linley received an intimation that
+her mother was seriously offended, in the form of a little note:
+
+"I find that my maternal interest in your welfare, and my devoted
+efforts to serve you, are only rewarded with furious looks. The
+less we see of each other the better. Permit me to thank you for
+your invitation, and to decline accompanying you when you leave
+Mount Morven tomorrow." Mrs. Linley answered the note in person.
+The next day Kitty's grandmother--ripe for more mischief--altered
+her mind, and thoroughly enjoyed her journey to the seaside.
+
+
+Chapter XVI.
+
+
+The Child.
+
+
+During the first week there was an improvement in the child's
+health, which justified the doctor's hopeful anticipations. Mrs.
+Linley wrote cheerfully to her husband; and the better nature of
+Mrs. Linley's mother seemed, by some inscrutable process, to
+thrive morally under the encouraging influences of the sea air.
+It may be a bold thing to say, but it is surely true that our
+virtues depend greatly on the state of our health.
+
+During the second week, the reports sent to Mount Morven were
+less encouraging. The improvement in Kitty was maintained; but it
+made no further progress.
+
+The lapse of the third week brought with it depressing results.
+There could be no doubt now that the child was losing ground.
+Bitterly disappointed, Mrs. Linley wrote to her medical adviser,
+describing the symptoms, and asking for instructions. The doctor
+wrote back: "Find out where your supply of drinking water comes
+from. If from a well, let me know how it is situated. Answer by
+telegraph." The reply arrived: "A well near the parish church."
+The doctor's advice ran back along the wires: "Come home
+instantly."
+
+They returned the same day--and they returned too late.
+
+Kitty's first night at home was wakeful and restless; her little
+hands felt feverish, and she was tormented by perpetual thirst.
+The good doctor still spoke hopefully; attributing the symptoms
+to fatigue after the journey. But, as the days followed each
+other, his medical visits were paid at shorter intervals. The
+mother noticed that his pleasant face became grave and anxious,
+and implored him to tell her the truth. The truth was told in two
+dreadful words: "Typhoid Fever."
+
+A day or two later, the doctor spoke privately with Mr. Linley.
+The child's debilitated condition--that lowered state of the
+vital power which he had observed when Kitty's case was first
+submitted to him--placed a terrible obstacle in the way of
+successful resistance to the advance of the disease. "Say nothing
+to Mrs. Linley just yet. There is no absolute danger so far,
+unless delirium sets in." "Do you think it likely?" Linley asked.
+The doctor shook his head, and said "God knows."
+
+On the next evening but one, the fatal symptom showed itself.
+There was nothing violent in the delirium. Unconscious of past
+events in the family life, the poor child supposed that her
+governess was living in the house as usual. She piteously
+wondered why Sydney remained downstairs in the schoolroom. "Oh,
+don't keep her away from me! I want Syd! I want Syd!" That was
+her one cry. When exhaustion silenced her, they hoped that the
+sad delusion was at an end. No! As the slow fire of the fever
+flamed up again, the same words were on the child's lips, the
+same fond hope was in her sinking heart.
+
+The doctor led Mrs. Linley out of the room. "Is this the
+governess?" he asked.
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Is she within easy reach?"
+
+"She is employed in the family of a friend of ours, living five
+miles away from us."
+
+"Send for her instantly!"
+
+Mrs. Linley looked at him with a wildly-mingled expression of
+hope and fear. She was not thinking of herself--she was not even
+thinking, for that one moment, of the child. What would her
+husband say, if she (who had extorted his promise never to see
+the governess again) brought Sydney Westerfield back to the
+house?
+
+The doctor spoke to her more strongly still.
+
+"I don't presume to inquire into your private reasons for
+hesitating to follow my advice," he said; "but I am bound to tell
+you the truth. My poor little patient is in serious danger--every
+hour of delay is an hour gained by death. Bring that lady to the
+bedside as fast as your carriage can fetch her, and let us see
+the result. If Kitty recognizes her governess--there, I tell you
+plainly, is the one chance of saving the child's life."
+
+Mrs. Linley's resolution flashed on him in her weary eyes--the
+eyes which, by day and night alike, had known so little rest. She
+rang for her maid. "Tell your master I want to speak to him."
+
+The woman answered: "My master has gone out."
+
+The doctor watched the mother's face. No sign of hesitation
+appeared in it--the one thought in her mind now was the thought
+of the child. She called the maid back.
+
+"Order the carriage."
+
+"At what time do you want it, ma'am?"
+
+"At once!"
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII.
+
+
+The Husband.
+
+
+Mrs. Linley's first impulse in ordering the carriage was to use
+it herself. One look at the child reminded her that her freedom
+of action began and ended at the bedside. More than an hour must
+elapse before Sydney Westerfield could be brought back to Mount
+Morven; the bare thought of what might happen in that interval,
+if she was absent, filled the mother with horror. She wrote to
+Mrs. MacEdwin, and sent her maid with the letter.
+
+Of the result of this proceeding it was not possible to entertain
+a doubt.
+
+Sydney's love for Kitty would hesitate at no sacrifice; and Mrs.
+MacEdwin's conduct had already answered for her. She had received
+the governess with the utmost kindness, and she had generously
+and delicately refrained from asking any questions. But one
+person at Mount Morven thought it necessary to investigate the
+motives under which she had acted. Mrs. Presty's inquiring mind
+arrived at discoveries; and Mrs. Presty's sense of duty
+communicated them to her daughter.
+
+"There can be no sort of doubt, Catherine, that our good friend
+and neighbor has heard, probably from the servants, of what has
+happened; and (having her husband to consider--men are so weak!)
+has drawn her own conclusions. If she trusts our fascinating
+governess, it's because she knows that Miss Westerfield's
+affections are left behind her in this house. Does my explanation
+satisfy you?"
+
+Mrs. Linley said: "Never let me hear it again!"
+
+And Mrs. Presty answered: "How very ungrateful!"
+
+The dreary interval of expectation, after the departure of the
+carriage, was brightened by a domestic event.
+
+Thinking it possible that Mrs. Presty might know why her husband
+had left the house, Mrs. Linley sent to ask for information. The
+message in reply informed her that Linley had received a telegram
+announcing Randal's return from London. He had gone to the
+railway station to meet his brother.
+
+Before she went downstairs to welcome Randal, Mrs. Linley paused
+to consider her situation. The one alternative before her was to
+acknowledge at the first opportunity that she had assumed the
+serious responsibility of sending for Sydney Westerfield. For the
+first time in her life, Catherine Linley found herself planning
+beforehand what she would say to her husband.
+
+A second message interrupted her, announcing that the two
+brothers had just arrived. She joined them in the drawing-room.
+
+Linley was sitting in a corner by himself. The dreadful discovery
+that the child's life (by the doctor's confession) was in danger
+had completely overwhelmed him: he had never even lifted his head
+when his wife opened the door. Randal and Mrs. Presty were
+talking together. The old lady's insatiable curiosity was eager
+for news from London: she wanted to know how Randal had amused
+himself when he was not attending to business.
+
+He was grieving for Kitty; and he was looking sadly at his
+brother. "I don't remember," he answered, absently. Other women
+might have discovered that they had chosen their time badly. Mrs.
+Presty, with the best possible intentions, remonstrated.
+
+"Really, Randal, you must rouse yourself. Surely you can tell us
+something. Did you meet with any agreeable people, while you were
+away?"
+
+"I met one person who interested me," he said, with weary
+resignation.
+
+Mrs. Presty smiled. "A woman, of course!"
+
+"A man," Randal answered; "a guest like myself at a club dinner."
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"Captain Bennydeck."
+
+"In the army?"
+
+"No: formerly in the navy."
+
+"And you and he had a long talk together?"
+
+Randal's tones began to betray irritation. "No," he said "the
+Captain went away early."
+
+Mrs. Presty's vigorous intellect discovered an improbability
+here. "Then how came you to feel interested in him?" she
+objected.
+
+Even Randal's patience gave way. "I can't account for it," he
+said sharply. "I only know I took a liking to Captain Bennydeck."
+He left Mrs. Presty and sat down by his brother. "You know I feel
+for you," he said, taking Linley's hand. "Try to hope."
+
+The bitterness of the father's despair broke out in his answer.
+"I can bear other troubles, Randal, as well as most men. This
+affliction revolts me. There's something so horribly unnatural in
+the child being threatened by death, while the parents (who
+should die first) are alive and well--" He checked himself. "I
+had better say no more, I shall only shock you."
+
+The misery in his face wrung the faithful heart of his wife. She
+forgot the conciliatory expressions which she had prepared
+herself to use. "Hope, my dear, as Randal tells you," she said,
+"because there _is_ hope."
+
+His face flushed, his dim eyes brightened. "Has the doctor said
+it?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why haven't I been told of it before?"
+
+"When I sent for you, I heard that you had gone out."
+
+The explanation passed by him unnoticed--perhaps even unheard.
+"Tell me what the doctor said," he insisted; "I want it exactly,
+word for word."
+
+She obeyed him to the letter.
+
+The sinister change in his face, as the narrative proceeded was
+observed by both the other persons present, as well as by his
+wife. She waited for a kind word of encouragement. He only said,
+coldly: "What have you done?"
+
+Speaking coldly on her side, she answered: "I have sent the
+carriage to fetch Miss Westerfield."
+
+There was a pause. Mrs. Presty whispered to Randal: "I knew she
+would come back again! The Evil Genius of the family--that's what
+I call Miss Westerfield. The name exactly fits her!"
+
+The idea in Randal's mind was that the name exactly fitted Mrs.
+Presty. He made no reply; his eyes rested in sympathy on his
+sister-in-law. She saw, and felt, his kindness at a time when
+kindness was doubly precious. Her ton es trembled a little as she
+spoke to her silent husband.
+
+"Don't you approve of what I have done, Herbert?"
+
+His nerves were shattered by grief and suspense; but he made an
+effort this time to speak gently. "How can I say that," he
+replied, "if the poor child's life depends on Miss Westerfield? I
+ask one favor--give me time to leave the house before she comes
+here."
+
+Mrs. Linley looked at him in amazement.
+
+Her mother touched her arm; Randal tried by a sign to warn her to
+be careful. Their calmer minds had seen what the wife's agitation
+had prevented her from discovering. In Linley's position, the
+return of the governess was a trial to his self-control which he
+had every reason to dread: his look, his voice, his manner
+proclaimed it to persons capable of quietly observing him. He had
+struggled against his guilty passion--at what sacrifice of his
+own feelings no one knew but himself--and here was the
+temptation, at the very time when he was honorably resisting it,
+brought back to him by his wife! Her motive did unquestionably
+excuse, perhaps even sanction, what she had done; but this was an
+estimate of her conduct which commended itself to others. From
+his point of view--motive or no motive--he saw the old struggle
+against himself in danger of being renewed; he felt the ground
+that he had gained slipping from under him already.
+
+In spite of the well-meant efforts made by her relatives to
+prevent it, Mrs. Linley committed the very error which it was the
+most important that she should avoid. She justified herself,
+instead of leaving it to events to justify her. "Miss Westerfield
+comes here," she argued, "on an errand that is beyond
+reproach--an errand of mercy. Why should you leave the house?"
+
+"In justice to you," Linley answered.
+
+Mrs. Presty could restrain herself no longer. "Drop it, Catherine!"
+she said in a whisper.
+
+Catherine refused to drop it; Linley's short and sharp reply had
+irritated her. "After my experience," she persisted, "have I no
+reason to trust you?"
+
+"It is part of your experience," he reminded her, "that I
+promised not to see Miss Westerfield again."
+
+"Own it at once!" she broke out, provoked beyond endurance;
+"though I may be willing to trust you--you are afraid to trust
+yourself."
+
+Unlucky Mrs. Presty interfered again. "Don't listen to her,
+Herbert. Keep out of harm's way, and you keep right."
+
+She patted him on the shoulder, as if she had been giving good
+advice to a boy. He expressed his sense of his mother-in-law's
+friendly offices in language which astonished her.
+
+"Hold your tongue!"
+
+"Do you hear that?" Mrs. Presty asked, appealing indignantly to
+her daughter.
+
+Linley took his hat. "At what time do you expect Miss Westerfield
+to arrive?" he said to his wife.
+
+She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. "Before the half-hour
+strikes. Don't be alarmed," she added, with an air of ironical
+sympathy; "you will have time to make your escape."
+
+He advanced to the door, and looked at her.
+
+"One thing I beg you will remember," he said. "Every half-hour
+while I am away (I am going to the farm) you are to send and let
+me know how Kitty is--and especially if Miss Westerfield
+justifies the experiment which the doctor has advised us to try."
+
+Having given those instructions he went out.
+
+The sofa was near Mrs. Linley. She sank on it, overpowered by the
+utter destruction of the hopes that she had founded on the
+separation of Herbert and the governess. Sydney Westerfield was
+still in possession of her husband's heart!
+
+Her mother was surely the right person to say a word of comfort
+to her. Randal made the suggestion--with the worst possible
+result. Mrs. Presty had not forgotten that she had been told--at
+her age, in her position as the widow of a Cabinet Minister--to
+hold her tongue. "Your brother has insulted me," she said to
+Randal. He was weak enough to attempt to make an explanation. "I
+was speaking of my brother's wife," he said. "Your brother's wife
+has allowed me to be insulted." Having received that reply,
+Randal could only wonder. This woman went to church every Sunday,
+and kept a New Testament, bound in excellent taste, on her
+toilet-table! The occasion suggested reflection on the system
+which produces average Christians at the present time. Nothing
+more was said by Mrs. Presty; Mrs. Linley remained absorbed in
+her own bitter thoughts. In silence they waited for the return of
+the carriage, and the appearance of the governess.
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII.
+
+
+The Nursemaid.
+
+
+Pale, worn, haggard with anxiety, Sydney Westerfield entered the
+room, and looked once more on the faces which she had resigned
+herself never to see again. She appeared to be hardly conscious
+of the kind reception which did its best to set her at her ease.
+
+"Am I in time?" were the first words that escaped her on entering
+the room. Reassured by the answer, she turned back to the door,
+eager to hurry upstairs to Kitty's bedside.
+
+Mrs. Linley's gentle hand detained her.
+
+The doctor had left certain instructions, warning the mother to
+guard against any accident that might remind Kitty of the day on
+which Sydney had left her. At the time of that bitter parting,
+the child had seen her governess in the same walking-dress which
+she wore now. Mrs. Linley removed the hat and cloak, and laid
+them on a chair.
+
+"There is one other precaution which we must observe," she said;
+"I must ask you to wait in my room until I find that you may show
+yourself safely. Now come with me."
+
+Mrs. Presty followed them, and begged earnestly for leave to wait
+the result of the momentous experiment, at the door of Kitty's
+bedroom. Her self-asserting manner had vanished; she was quiet,
+she was even humble. While the last chance for the child's life
+was fast becoming a matter of minutes only, the grandmother's
+better nature showed itself on the surface. Randal opened the
+door for them as the three went out together. He was in that
+state of maddening anxiety about his poor little niece in which
+men of his imaginative temperament become morbid, and say
+strangely inappropriate things. In the same breath with which he
+implored his sister-in-law to let him hear what had happened,
+without an instant of delay, he startled Mrs. Presty by one of
+his familiar remarks on the inconsistencies in her character.
+"You disagreeable old woman," he whispered, as she passed him,
+"you have got a heart, after all."
+
+Left alone, he was never for one moment in repose, while the slow
+minutes followed each other in the silent house.
+
+He walked about the room, he listened at the door, he arranged
+and disarranged the furniture. When the nursemaid descended from
+the upper regions with her mistress's message for him, he ran out
+to meet her; saw the good news in her smiling face; and, for the
+first and last time in his life kissed one of his brother's
+female servants. Susan--a well-bred young person, thoroughly
+capable in ordinary cases of saying "For shame, sir!" and looking
+as if she expected to feel an arm round her waist next--trembled
+with terror under that astounding salute. Her master's brother, a
+pattern of propriety up to that time, a man declared by her to be
+incapable of kissing a woman unless she had a right to insist on
+it in the licensed character of his wife, had evidently taken
+leave of his senses. Would he bite her next? No: he only looked
+confused, and said (how very extraordinary!) that he would never
+do it again. Susan gave her message gravely. Here was an
+unintelligible man; she felt the necessity of being careful in
+her choice of words.
+
+"Miss Kitty stared at Miss Westerfield--only for a moment,
+sir--as if she didn't quite understand, and then knew her again
+directly. The doctor had just called. He drew up the blind to let
+the light in, and he looked, and he says: 'Only be careful'--"
+Tender-hearted Susan broke down, and began to cry. "I can't help
+it, sir; we are all so fond of Miss Kitty, and we are so happy.
+'Only be careful' (those were the exact words, if you please),
+'and I answer for her life.'--Oh, dear! what have I said to make
+him run away from me?"
+
+Randal had left her abruptly, and had shut himself into the
+drawing-room. Susan's experience of men had not yet informed her
+that a true Englishman is ashamed to be seen (especially by his
+inferiors) with the tears in his eyes.
+
+He had barely succeeded in composing himself, when another
+servant appeared--this time a man--with something to say to him.
+
+"I don't know whether I have done right, sir," Malcolm began.
+"There's a stranger downstairs among the tourists who are looking
+at the rooms and the pictures. He said he knew you. And he asked
+if you were not related to the gentleman who allowed travelers to
+see his interesting old house."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, sir, I said Yes. And then he wanted to know if you
+happened to be here at the present time."
+
+Randal cut the man's story short. "And you said Yes again, and he
+gave you his card. Let me look at it."
+
+Malcolm produced the card, and instantly received instructions to
+show the gentleman up. The name recalled the dinner at the London
+club--Captain Bennydeck.
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX.
+
+
+The Captain.
+
+
+The fair complexion of the Captain's youthful days had been
+darkened by exposure to hard weather and extreme climates. His
+smooth face of twenty years since was scored by the telltale
+marks of care; his dark beard was beginning to present variety of
+color by means of streaks of gray; and his hair was in course of
+undisguised retreat from his strong broad forehead. Not rising
+above the middle height, the Captain's spare figure was well
+preserved. It revealed power and activity, severely tested
+perhaps at some former time, but capable even yet of endurance
+under trial. Although he looked older than his age, he was still,
+personally speaking, an attractive man. In repose, his eyes were
+by habit sad and a little weary in their expression. They only
+caught a brighter light when he smiled. At such times, helped by
+this change and by his simple, earnest manner, they recommended
+him to his fellow-creatures before he opened his lips. Men and
+women taking shelter with him, for instance, from the rain, found
+the temptation to talk with Captain Bennydeck irresistible; and,
+when the weather cleared, they mostly carried away with them the
+same favorable impression: "One would like to meet with that
+gentleman again."
+
+Randal's first words of welcome relieved the Captain of certain
+modest doubts of his reception, which appeared to trouble him
+when he entered the room. "I am glad to find you remember me as
+kindly as I remember you." Those were his first words when he and
+Randal shook hands.
+
+"You might have felt sure of that," Randal said.
+
+The Captain's modesty still doubted.
+
+"You see, the circumstances were a little against me. We met at a
+dull dinner, among wearisome worldly men, full of boastful talk
+about themselves. It was all 'I did this,' and 'I said that'--and
+the gentlemen who were present had always been right; and the
+gentlemen who were absent had always been wrong. And, oh, dear.
+when they came to politics, how they bragged about what they
+would have done if they had only been at the head of the
+Government; and how cruelly hard to please they were in the
+matter of wine! Do you remember recommending me to spend my next
+holiday in Scotland?"
+
+"Perfectly. My advice was selfish--it really meant that I wanted
+to see you again."
+
+"And you have your wish, at your brother's house! The guide book
+did it. First, I saw your family name. Then, I read on and
+discovered that there were pictures at Mount Morven and that
+strangers were allowed to see them. I like pictures. And here I
+am."
+
+This allusion to the house naturally reminded Randal of the
+master. "I wish I could introduce you to my brother and his
+wife," he said. "Unhappily their only child is ill--"
+
+Captain Bennydeck started to his feet. "I am ashamed of having
+intruded on you," he began. His new friend pressed him back into
+his chair without ceremony. "On the contrary, you have arrived at
+the best of all possible times--the time when our suspense is at
+an end. The doctor has just told us that his poor little patient
+is out of danger. You may imagine how happy we are."
+
+"And how grateful to God!" The Captain said those words in tones
+that trembled--speaking to himself.
+
+Randal was conscious of feeling a momentary embarrassment. The
+character of his visitor had presented itself in a new light.
+Captain Bennydeck looked at him--understood him--and returned to
+the subject of his travels.
+
+"Do you remember your holiday-time when you were a boy, and when
+you had to go back to school?" he asked with a smile. "My mind is
+in much the same state at leaving Scotland, and going back to my
+work in London. I hardly know which I admire most--your beautiful
+country or the people who inhabit it. I have had some pleasant
+talk with your poorer neighbors; the one improvement I could wish
+for among them is a keener sense of their religious duties."
+
+This was an objection new in Randal's experience of travelers in
+general.
+
+"Our Highlanders have noble qualities," he said. "If you knew
+them as well as I do, you would find a true sense of religion
+among them; not presenting itself, however, to strangers as
+strongly--I had almost said as aggressively--as the devotional
+feeling of the Lowland Scotch. Different races, different
+temperaments."
+
+"And all," the Captain added, gravely and gently, "with souls to
+be saved. If I sent to these poor people some copies of the New
+Testament, translated into their own language, would my gift be
+accepted?"
+
+Strongly interested by this time, in studying Captain Bennydeck's
+character on the side of it which was new to him, Randal owned
+that he observed with surprise the interest which his friend felt
+in perfect strangers. The Captain seemed to wonder why this
+impression should have been produced by what he had just said.
+
+"I only try," he answered, "to do what good I can, wherever I
+go."
+
+"Your life must be a happy one," Randal said.
+
+Captain Bennydeck's head drooped. The shadows that attend on the
+gloom of melancholy remembrance showed their darkening presence
+on his face. Briefly, almost sternly, he set Randal right.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Forgive me," the younger man pleaded, "if I have spoken
+thoughtlessly."
+
+"You have mistaken me," the Captain explained; "and it is my
+fault. My life is an atonement for the sins of my youth. I have
+reached my fortieth year--and that one purpose is before me for
+the rest of my days. Sufferings and dangers which but few men
+undergo awakened my conscience. My last exercise of the duties of
+my profession associated me with an expedition to the Polar Seas.
+Our ship was crushed in the ice. Our march to the nearest regions
+inhabited by humanity was a hopeless struggle of starving men,
+rotten with scurvy, against the merciless forces of Nature. One
+by one my comrades dropped and died. Out of twenty men there were
+three left with a last flicker in them of the vital flame when
+the party of rescue found us. One of the three died on the
+homeward journey. One lived to reach his native place, and to
+sink to rest with his wife and children round his bed. The last
+man left, out of that band of martyrs to a hopeless cause, lives
+to be worthier of God's mercy--and tries to make God's creatures
+better and happier in this world, and worthier of the world that
+is to come."
+
+Randal's generous nature felt the appeal that had been made to
+it. "Will you let me take your hand, Captain?" he said.
+
+They clasped hands in silence.
+
+Captain Bennydeck was the first to speak again. That modest
+distrust of himself, which a man essentially noble and brave is
+generally the readiest of men to feel, seemed to be troubling him
+once more--just as it had troubled him when he first found
+himself in Randal's presence.
+
+"I hope you won't think me vain," he resumed; "I seldom say so
+much about myself as I have said to you."
+
+"I only wish you would say more," Randal rejoined. "Can't you put
+off your return to London for a day or two?"
+
+The thing was not to be done. Duties which it was impossible to
+trifle with called the Captain back. "It's quite likely," he
+said, alluding pleasantly to the impression which he had produced
+in speaking of the Highlanders, "that I shall find more strangers
+to interest me in the great city."
+
+"Are they always strangers?" Randal asked. "Have you never met by
+accident with persons whom you may once have known?"
+
+"Never--yet. But it may happen on my return."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"In this way. I have been in search of a poor girl who has lost
+both her parents: she has, I fear, been left helpless at the
+mercy of the world. Her father was an old friend of mine--once an
+officer in the Navy like myself. The agent whom I formerly
+employed (without success) to trace her, writes me word that he
+has reason to believe she has obtained a situation as
+pupil-teacher at a school in the suburbs of London; and I am
+going back (among other things) to try if I can follow the clew
+myself. Good-by, my friend. I am heartily sorry to go!"
+
+"Life is made up of partings," Randal answered.
+
+"And of meetings," the Captain wisely reminded him. "When you are
+in London, you will always hear of me at the club."
+
+Heartily reciprocating his good wishes, Randal attended Captain
+Bennydeck to the door. On the way back to the drawing-room, he
+found his mind dwelling, rather to his surprise, on the Captain's
+contemplated search for the lost girl.
+
+Was the good man likely to find her? It seemed useless enough to
+inquire--and yet Randal asked himself the question. Her father
+had been described as an officer in the Navy. Well, and what did
+that matter? Inclined to laugh at his own idle curiosity, he was
+suddenly struck by a new idea. What had his brother told him of
+Miss Westerfield? _She_ was the daughter of an officer in the
+Navy; _she_ had been pupil-teacher at a school. Was it really
+possible that Sydney Westerfield could be the person whom Captain
+Bennydeck was attempting to trace? Randal threw up the window
+which overlooked the drive in front of the house. Too late! The
+carriage which had brought the Captain to Mount Morven was no
+longer in sight.
+
+The one other course that he could take was to mention Captain
+Bennydeck's name to Sydney, and be guided by the result.
+
+As he approached the bell, determining to send a message
+upstairs, he heard the door opened behind him. Mrs. Presty had
+entered the drawing-room, with a purpose (as it seemed) in which
+Randal was concerned.
+
+
+Chapter XX.
+
+The Mother-in-Law.
+
+
+Strong as the impression was which Captain Bennydeck had produced
+on Randal, Mrs. Presty's first words dismissed it from his mind.
+She asked him if he had any message for his brother.
+
+Randal instantly looked at the clock. "Has Catherine not sent to
+the farm, yet?" he asked in astonishment.
+
+Mrs. Presty's mind seemed to be absorbed in her daughter. "Ah,
+poor Catherine! Worn out with anxiety and watching at Kitty's
+bedside. Night after night without any sleep; night after night
+tortured by suspense. As usual, she can depend on her old mother
+for sympathy. I have taken all her household duties on myself,
+till she is in better health."
+
+Randal tried again. "Mrs. Presty, am I to understand (after the
+plain direction Herbert gave) that no messenger has been sent to
+the farm?"
+
+Mrs. Presty held her venerable head higher than ever, when Randal
+pronounced his brother's name. "I see no necessity for being in a
+hurry," she answered stiffly, "after the brutal manner in which
+Herbert has behaved to me. Put yourself in my place--and imagine
+what you would feel if you were told to hold your tongue."
+
+Randal wasted no more time on ears that were deaf to
+remonstrance. Feeling the serious necessity of interfering to
+some good purpose, he asked where he might find his
+sister-in-law.
+
+"I have taken Catherine into the garden," Mrs. Presty announced.
+"The doctor himself suggested--no, I may say, ordered it. He is
+afraid that _she_ may fall ill next, poor soul, if she doesn't
+get air and exercise."
+
+In Mrs. Linley's own interests, Randal resolved on advising her
+to write to her husband by the messenger; explaining that she was
+not to blame for the inexcusable delay which had already taken
+place. Without a word more to Mrs. Presty, he hastened out of the
+room. That inveterately distrustful woman called him back. She
+desired to know where he was going, and why he was in a hurry.
+
+"I am going to the garden," Randal answered.
+
+"To speak to Catherine?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Needless trouble, my dear Randal. She will be back in a quarter
+of an hour, and she will pass through this room on her way
+upstairs."
+
+Another quarter of an hour was a matter of no importance to Mrs.
+Presty! Randal took his own way--the way into the garden.
+
+His silence and his determination to join his sister-in-law
+roused Mrs. Presty's ready suspicions; she concluded that he was
+bent on making mischief between her daughter and herself. The one
+thing to do in this case was to follow him instantly. The active
+old lady trotted out of the room, strongly inclined to think that
+the Evil Genius of the family might be Randal Linley after all!
+
+They had both taken the shortest way to the garden; that is to
+say, the way through the library, which communicated at its
+furthest end with the corridor and the vaulted flight of stairs
+leading directly out of the house. Of the two doors in the
+drawing-room, one, on the left, led to the grand staircase and
+the hall; the other, on the right, opened on the backstairs, and
+on a side entrance to the house, used by the family when they
+were pressed for time, as well as by the servants.
+
+The drawing-room had not been empty more than a few minutes when
+the door on the right was suddenly opened. Herbert Linley,
+entered with hurried, uncertain steps. He took the chair that was
+nearest to him, and dropped into it like a man overpowered by
+agitation or fatigue.
+
+He had ridden from the farm at headlong speed, terrified by the
+unexplained delay in the arrival of the messenger from home.
+Unable any longer to suffer the torment of unrelieved suspense,
+he had returned to make inquiry at the house. As he interpreted
+the otherwise inexplicable neglect of his instructions, the last
+chance of saving the child's life had failed, and his wife had
+been afraid to tell him the dreadful truth.
+
+After an interval, he rose and went into the library.
+
+It was empty, like the drawing-room. The bell was close by him.
+He lifted his hand to ring it--and drew back. As brave a man as
+ever lived, he knew what fear was now. The father's courage
+failed him before the prospect of summoning a servant, and
+hearing, for all he knew to the contrary, that his child was
+dead.
+
+How long he stood there, alone and irresolute, he never
+remembered when he thought of it in after-days. All he knew was
+that there came a time when a sound in the drawing-room attracted
+his attention. It was nothing more important than the opening of
+a door.
+
+The sound came from that side of the room which was nearest to
+the grand staircase--and therefore nearest also to the hall in
+one direction, and to the bed-chambers in the other.
+
+Some person had entered the room. Whether it was one of the
+family or one of the servants, he would hear in either case what
+had happened in his absence. He parted the curtains over the
+library entrance, and looked through.
+
+The person was a woman. She stood with her back turned toward the
+library, lifting a cloak off a chair. As she shook the cloak out
+before putting it on, she changed her position. He saw the face,
+never to be forgotten by him to the last day of his life. He saw
+Sydney Westerfield.
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI.
+
+
+The Governess.
+
+
+Linley had one instant left, in which he might have drawn, back
+into the library in time to escape Sydney's notice. He was
+incapable of the effort of will. Grief and suspense had deprived
+him of that elastic readiness of mind which springs at once from
+thought to action. For a moment he hesitated. In that moment she
+looked up and saw him.
+
+With a faint cry of alarm she let the cloak drop from her hands.
+As helpless as he was, as silent as he was, she stood rooted to
+the spot.
+
+He tried to control himself. Hardly knowing what he said, he made
+commonplace excuses, as if he had been a stranger: "I am sorry to
+have startled you; I had no idea of finding you in this room."
+
+Sydney pointed to her cloak on the floor, and to her hat on a
+chair near it. Understanding the necessity which had brought her
+into the room, he did his best to reconcile her to the meeting
+that had followed.
+
+"It's a relief to me to have seen you," he said, "before you
+leave us."
+
+A relief to him to see her! Why? How? What did that strange word
+mean, addressed to _her?_ She roused herself, and put the
+question to him.
+
+"It's surely better for me," he answered, "to hear the miserable
+news from you than from a servant."
+
+"What miserable news?" she asked, still as perplexed as ever.
+
+He could preserve his self-control no longer; the misery in him
+forced its way outward at last. The convulsive struggles for
+breath which burst from a man in tears shook him from head to
+foot.
+
+"My poor little darling!" he gasped. "My only child!"
+
+All that was embarrassing in her position passed from Sydney's
+mind in an instant. She stepped close up to him; she laid her
+hand gently and fearlessly on his arm. "Oh, Mr. Linley, what
+dreadful mistake is this?"
+
+His dim eyes rested on her with a piteous expression of doubt. He
+heard her--and he was afraid to believe her. She was too deeply
+distressed, too full of the truest pity for him, to wait and
+think before she spoke. "Yes! yes!" she cried, under the impulse
+of the moment. "The dear child knew me again, the moment I spoke
+to her. Kitty's recovery is only a matter of time."
+
+He staggered back--with a livid change in his face startling to
+see. The mischief done by Mrs. Presty's sense of injury had led
+already to serious results. If the thought in Linley, at that
+moment, had shaped itself into words, he would have said, "And
+Catherine never told me of it!" How bitterly he thought of the
+woman who had left him in suspense--how gratefully he felt toward
+the woman who had lightened his heart of the heaviest burden ever
+laid on it!
+
+Innocent of all suspicion of the feeling that she had aroused,
+Sydney blamed her own want of discretion as the one cause of the
+change that she perceived in him. "How thoughtless, how cruel of
+me," she said, "not to have been more careful in telling you the
+good news! Pray forgive me."
+
+"You thoughtless! you cruel!" At the bare idea of her speaking in
+that way of herself, his sense of what he owed to her defied all
+restraint. He seized her hands and covered them with grateful
+kisses. "Dear Sydney! dear, good Sydney!"
+
+She drew back from him; not abruptly, not as if she felt
+offended. Her fine perception penetrated the meaning of those
+harmless kisses--the uncontrollable outburst of a sense of relief
+beyond the reach of expression in words. But she changed the
+subject. Mrs. Linley (she told him) had kindly ordered fresh
+horses to be put to the carriage, so that she might go back to
+her duties if the doctor sanctioned it.
+
+She turned away to take up her cloak. Linley stopped her. "You
+can't leave Kitty," he said, positively.
+
+A faint smile brightened her face for a moment. "Kitty has fallen
+asleep--such a sweet, peaceful sleep! I don't think I should have
+left her but for that. The maid is watching at the bedside, and
+Mrs. Linley is only away for a little while."
+
+"Wait a few minutes," he pleaded; "it's so long since we have
+seen each other."
+
+The tone in which he spoke warned her to persist in leaving him
+while her resolution remained firm. "I had arranged with Mrs.
+MacEdwin," she began, "if all went well--"
+
+"Speak of yourself," he interposed. "Tell me if you are happy."
+
+She let this pass without a reply. "The doctor sees no harm," she
+went on, "in my being away for a few hours. Mrs. MacEdwin has
+offered to send me here in the evening, so that I can sleep in
+Kitty's room."
+
+"You don't look well, Sydney. You are pale and worn--you are not
+happy."
+
+She began to tremble. For the second time, she turned away to
+take up her cloak. For the second time, he stopped her.
+
+"Not just yet," he said. "You don't know how it distresses me to
+see you so sadly changed. I remember the time when you were the
+happiest creature living. Do you remember it, too?"
+
+"Don't ask me!" was all she could say.
+
+He sighed as he looked at her. "It's dreadful to think of your
+young life, that ought to be so bright, wasting and withering
+among strangers." He said those words with increasing agitation;
+his eyes rested on her eagerly with a wild look in them. She made
+a resolute effort to speak to him coldly--she called him "Mr.
+Linley"--she bade him good-by.
+
+It was useless. He stood between her and the door; he disregarded
+what she had said as if he had not heard it. "Hardly a day
+passes," he owned to her, "that I don't think of you."
+
+"You shouldn't tell me that!"
+
+"How can I see you again--and not tell you?"
+
+She burst out with a last entreaty. "For God's sake, let us say
+good-by!"
+
+His manner became undisguisedly tender; his language changed in
+the one way of all others that was most perilous to her--he
+appealed to her pity: "Oh, Sydney, it's so hard to part with
+you!"
+
+"Spare me!" she cried, passionately. "You don't know how I
+suffer."
+
+"My sweet angel, I do know it--by what I suffer myself! Do you
+ever feel for me as I feel for you?"
+
+"Oh, Herbert! Herbert!"
+
+"Have you ever thought of me since we parted?"
+
+She had striven against herself, and against him, till her last
+effort at resistance was exhausted. In reckless despair she let
+the truth escape her at last.
+
+"When do I ever think of anything else! I am a wretch unworthy of
+all the kindness that has been shown to me. I don't deserve your
+interest; I don't even deserve your pity. Send me away--be hard
+on me--be brutal to me. Have some mercy on a miserable creature
+whose life is one long hopeless effort to forget you!" Her voice,
+her look, maddened him. He drew her to his bosom; he held her in
+his arms; she struggled vainly to get away from him. "Oh," she
+murmured, "how cruel you are! Remember, my dear one, remember how
+young I am, how weak I am. Oh, Herbert, I'm dying--dying--dying!"
+Her voice grew fainter and fainter; her head sank on his breast.
+He lifted her face to him with whispered words of love. He kissed
+her again and again.
+
+
+
+
+The curtains over the library entrance moved noiselessly when
+they were parted. The footsteps of Catherine Linley were
+inaudible as she passed through, and entered the room.
+
+She stood still for a moment in silent horror.
+
+Not a sound warned them when she advanced. After hesitating for a
+moment, she raised her hand toward her husband, as if to tell him
+of her presence by a touch; drew it back, suddenly recoiling from
+her own first intention; and touched Sydney instead.
+
+Then, and then only, they knew what had happened.
+
+Face to face, those three persons--with every tie that had once
+united them snapped asunder in an instant--looked at each other.
+The man owed a duty to the lost creature whose weakness had
+appealed to his mercy in vain. The man broke the silence.
+
+"Catherine--"
+
+With immeasurable contempt looking brightly out of her steady
+eyes, his wife stopped him.
+
+"Not a word!"
+
+He refused to be silent. "It is I," he said; "I only who am to
+blame."
+
+"Spare yourself the trouble of making excuses," she answered;
+"they are needless. Herbert Linley, the woman who was once your
+wife despises you."
+
+Her eyes turned from him and rested on Sydney Westerfield.
+
+"I have a last word to say to _you_. Look at me, if you can."
+
+Sydney lifted her head. She looked vacantly at the outraged woman
+before her, as if she saw a woman in a dream.
+
+With the same terrible self-possession which she had preserved
+from the first--standing between her husband and her
+governess--Mrs. Linley spoke.
+
+"Miss Westerfield, you have saved my child's life." She
+paused--her eyes still resting on the girl's face. Deadly pale,
+she pointed to her husband, and said to Sydney: "Take him!"
+
+She passed out of the room--and left them together.
+
+
+
+THIRD BOOK.
+
+
+Chapter XXII.
+
+
+Retrospect.
+
+
+The autumn holiday-time had come to an end; and the tourists had
+left Scotland to the Scots.
+
+In the dull season, a solitary traveler from the North arrived at
+the nearest post-town to Mount Morven. A sketchbook and a
+color-box formed part of his luggage, and declared him to be an
+artist. Falling into talk over his dinner with the waiter at the
+hotel, he made inquiries about a picturesque house in the
+neighborhood, which showed that Mount Morven was well known to
+him by reputation. When he proposed paying a visit to the old
+border fortress the next day, the waiter said: "You can't see
+the house." When the traveler asked Why, this man of few words
+merely added: "Shut up."
+
+The landlord made his appearance with a bottle of wine and proved
+to be a more communicative person in his relations with
+strangers. Presented in an abridged form, and in the English
+language, these (as he related them) were the circumstances under
+which Mount Morven had been closed to the public.
+
+A complete dispersion of the family had taken place not long
+since. For miles round everybody was sorry for it. Rich and poor
+alike felt the same sympathy with the good lady of the house. She
+had been most shamefully treated by her husband, and by a
+good-for-nothing girl employed as governess. To put it plainly,
+the two had run away together; one report said they had gone
+abroad, and another declared that they were living in London. Mr.
+Linley's conduct was perfectly incomprehensible. He had always
+borne the highest character--a good landlord, a kind father, a
+devoted husband. And yet, after more than eight years of
+exemplary married life, he had disgraced himself. The minister of
+the parish, preaching on the subject, had attributed this
+extraordinary outbreak of vice on the part of an otherwise
+virtuous man, to a possession of the devil. Assuming "the devil,"
+in this case, to be only a discreet and clerical way of alluding
+from the pulpit to a woman, the landlord was inclined to agree
+with the minister. After what had happened, it was, of course,
+impossible that Mrs. Linley could remain in her husband's house.
+She and her little girl, and her mother, were supposed to be
+living in retirement. They kept the place of their retreat a
+secret from everybody but Mrs. Linley's legal adviser, who was
+instructed to forward letters. But one other member of the family
+remained to be accounted for. This was Mr. Linley's younger
+brother, known at present to be traveling on the Continent. Two
+trustworthy old servants had been left in charge at Mount
+Morven--and there was the whole story; and that was why the house
+was shut up.
+
+
+Chapter XXIII.
+
+
+Separation.
+
+
+In a cottage on the banks of one of the Cumberland Lakes, two
+ladies were seated at the breakfast-table. The windows of the
+room opened on a garden which extended to the water's edge, and
+on a boat-house and wooden pier beyond. On the pier a little girl
+was fishing, under the care of her maid. After a prevalence of
+rainy weather, the sun was warm this morning for the time of
+year; and the broad sheet of water alternately darkened and
+brightened as the moving masses of cloud now gathered and now
+parted over the blue beauty of the sky.
+
+The ladies had finished their breakfast; the elder of the
+two--that is to say, Mrs. Presty--took up her knitting and eyed
+her silent daughter with an expression of impatient surprise.
+
+"Another bad night, Catherine?"
+
+The personal attractions that distinguished Mrs. Linley were not
+derived from the short-lived beauty which depends on youth and
+health. Pale as she was, her face preserved its fine outline; her
+features had not lost their grace and symmetry of form.
+Presenting the appearance of a woman who had suffered acutely,
+she would have been more than ever (in the eyes of some men) a
+woman to be admired and loved.
+
+"I seldom sleep well now," she answered, patiently.
+
+"You don't give yourself a chance," Mrs. Presty remonstrated.
+"Here's a fine morning--come out for a sail on the lake.
+To-morrow there's a concert in the town--let's take tickets.
+There's a want of what I call elastic power in your mind,
+Catherine--the very quality for which your father was so
+remarkable; the very quality which Mr. Presty used to say made
+him envy Mr. Norman. Look at your dress! Where's the
+common-sense, at your age, of wearing nothing but black? Nobody's
+dead who belongs to us, and yet you do your best to look as if
+you were in mourning."
+
+"I have no heart, mamma, to wear colors."
+
+Mrs. Presty considered this reply to be unworthy of notice. She
+went on with her knitting, and only laid it down when the servant
+brought in the letters which had arrived by the morning's post.
+They were but two in number--and both were for Mrs. Linley. In
+the absence of any correspondence of her own, Mrs. Presty took
+possession of her daughter's letters.
+
+"One addressed in the lawyer's handwriting," she announced; "and
+one from Randal. Which shall I open for you first?"
+
+"Randal's letter, if you please."
+
+Mrs. Presty handed it across the table. "Any news is a relief
+from the dullness of this place," she said. "If there are no
+secrets, Catherine, read it out."
+
+There were no secrets on the first page.
+
+Randal announced his arrival in London from the Continent, and
+his intention of staying there for a while. He had met with a
+friend (formerly an officer holding high rank in the Navy) whom
+he was glad to see again--a rich man who used his wealth
+admirably in the interest of his poor and helpless
+fellow-creatures. A "Home," established on a new plan, was just
+now engaging all his attention: he was devoting himself so
+unremittingly to the founding of this institution that his doctor
+predicted injury to his health at no distant date. If it was
+possible to persuade him to take a holiday, Randal might return
+to the Continent as the traveling-companion of his friend.
+
+"This must be the man whom he first met at the club," Mrs. Presty
+remarked. "Well, Catherine, I suppose there is some more of it.
+What's the matter? Bad news?"
+
+"Something that I wish Randal had not written. Read it
+yourself--and don't talk of it afterward."
+
+Mrs. Presty read:
+
+"I know nothing whatever of my unfortunate brother. If you think
+this is a too-indulgent way of alluding to a man who has so
+shamefully wronged you, let my conviction that he is already
+beginning to suffer the penalty of his crime plead my excuse.
+Herbert's nature is, in some respects, better known to me than it
+is to you. I am persuaded that your hold on his respect and his
+devotion is shaken--not lost. He has been misled by one of those
+passing fancies, disastrous and even criminal in their results,
+to which men are liable when they are led by no better influence
+than the influence of their senses. It is not, and never will be,
+in the nature of women to understand this. I fear I may offend
+you in what I am now writing; but I must speak what I believe to
+be the truth, at any sacrifice. Bitter repentance (if he is not
+already feeling it) is in store for Herbert, when he finds
+himself tied to a person who cannot bear comparison with you. I
+say this, pitying the poor girl most sincerely, when I think of
+her youth and her wretched past life. How it will end I cannot
+presume to say. I can only acknowledge that I do not look to the
+future with the absolute despair which you naturally felt when I
+last saw you."
+
+Mrs. Presty laid the letter down, privately resolving to write to
+Randal, and tell him to keep his convictions for the future to
+himself. A glance at her daughter's face warned her, if she said
+anything, to choose a new subject.
+
+The second letter still remained unnoticed. "Shall we see what
+the lawyer says?" she suggested--and opened the envelope. The
+lawyer had nothing to say. He simply inclosed a letter received
+at his office.
+
+Mrs. Presty had long passed the age at which emotion expresses
+itself outwardly by a change of color. She turned pale,
+nevertheless, when she looked at the second letter.
+
+The address was in Herbert Linley's handwriting.
+
+
+Chapter XXIV.
+
+
+Hostility.
+
+
+When she was not eating her meals or asleep in her bed, absolute
+silence on Mrs. Presty's part was a circumstance without
+precedent in the experience of her daughter. Mrs. Presty was
+absolutely silent now. Mrs. Linley looked up.
+
+She at once perceived the change in her mother's face and asked
+what it meant. "Mamma, you look as if something had frightened
+you. Is it anything in that letter?" She bent over the table, and
+looked a little closer at the letter. Mrs. Presty had turned it
+so that the address was underneath; and the closed envelope was
+visible still intact. "Why don't you open it?" Mrs. Linley asked.
+
+Mrs. Presty made a strange reply. "I am thinking of throwing it
+into the fire."
+
+"My letter?"
+
+"Yes; your letter."
+
+"Let me look at it first."
+
+"You had better not look at it, Catherine."
+
+Naturally enough, Mrs. Linley remonstrated. "Surely I ought to
+read a letter forwarded by my lawyer. Why are you hiding the
+address from me? Is it from some person whose handwriting we both
+know?" She looked again at her silent mother--reflected--and
+guessed the truth. "Give it to me directly," she said; "my
+husband has written to me."
+
+Mrs. Presty's heavy eyebrows gathered into a frown. "Is it
+possible," she asked sternly, "that you are still fond enough of
+that man to care about what he writes to you?" Mrs. Linley held
+out her hand for the letter. Her wise mother found it desirable
+to try persuasion next. "If you really won't give way, my dear,
+humor me for once. Will you let me read it to you?"
+
+"Yes--if you promise to read every word of it."
+
+Mrs. Presty promised (with a mental reservation), and opened the
+letter.
+
+At the two first words, she stopped and began to clean her
+spectacles. Had her own eyes deceived her? Or had Herbert Linley
+actually addressed her daughter--after having been guilty of the
+cruelest wrong that a husband can inflict on a wife--as "Dear
+Catherine"? Yes: there were the words, when she put her
+spectacles on again. Was he in his right senses? or had he
+written in a state of intoxication?
+
+Mrs. Linley waited, with a preoccupied mind: she showed no signs
+of impatience or surprise. As it presently appeared, she was not
+thinking of the letter addressed to her by Herbert, but of the
+letter written by Randal. "I want to look at it again." With that
+brief explanation she turned at once to the closing lines which
+had offended her when she first read them.
+
+Mrs. Presty hazarded a guess at what was going on in her
+daughter's mind. "Now your husband has written to you," she said,
+"are you beginning to think Randal's opinion may be worth
+considering again?" With her eyes still on Randal's letter, Mrs.
+Linley merely answered: "Why don't you begin?" Mrs. Presty began
+as follows, leaving out the familiarity of her son-in-law's
+address to his wife.
+
+"I hope and trust you will forgive me for venturing to write to
+you, in consideration of the subject of my letter. I have
+something to say concerning our child. Although I have deserved
+the worst you can think of me, I believe you will not deny that
+even your love for our little Kitty (while we were living
+together) was not a truer love than mine. Bad as I am, my heart
+has that tender place left in it still. I cannot endure
+separation from my child."
+
+Mrs. Linley rose to her feet. The first vague anticipations of
+future atonement and reconciliation, suggested by her
+brother-in-law, no longer existed in her mind: she foresaw but
+too plainly what was to come. "Read faster," she said, "or let me
+read it for myself."
+
+Mrs. Presty went on: "There is no wish, on my part, to pain you
+by any needless allusion to my claims as a father. My one desire
+is to enter into an arrangement which shall be as just toward
+you, as it is toward me. I propose that Kitty shall live with her
+father one half of the year, and shall return to her mother's
+care for the other half If there is any valid objection to this,
+I confess I fail to see it."
+
+Mrs. Linley could remain silent no longer.
+
+"Does he see no difference," she broke out, "between his position
+and mine? What consolation--in God's name, what consolation is
+left to me for the rest of my life but my child? And he threatens
+to separate us for six months in every year! And he takes credit
+to himself for an act of exalted justice on his part! Is there no
+such thing as shame in the hearts of men?"
+
+Under ordinary circumstances, her mother would have tried to calm
+her. But Mrs. Presty had turned to the next page of the letter,
+at the moment when her daughter spoke.
+
+What she found written, on that other side, produced a startling
+effect on her. She crumpled the letter up in her hand, and threw
+it into the fireplace. It fell under the grate instead of into
+the grate. With amazing activity for a woman of her age, she ran
+across the room to burn it. Younger and quicker, Mrs. Linley got
+to the fireplace first, and seized the letter. "There is
+something more!" she exclaimed. "And you are afraid of my knowing
+what it is."
+
+"Don't read it!" Mrs. Presty called out.
+
+There was but one sentence left to read: "If your maternal
+anxiety suggests any misgiving, let me add that a woman's loving
+care will watch over our little girl while she is under my roof.
+You will remember how fond Miss Westerfield was of Kitty, and you
+will believe me when I tell you that she is as truly devoted to
+the child as ever."
+
+"I tried to prevent you from reading it," said Mrs. Presty.
+
+Mrs. Linley looked at her mother with a strange unnatural smile.
+
+"I wouldn't have missed this for anything!" she said. "The
+cruelest of all separations is proposed to me--and I am expected
+to submit to it, because my husband's mistress is fond of my
+child!" She threw the letter from her with a frantic gesture of
+contempt and burst into a fit of hysterical laughter.
+
+The old mother's instinct--not the old mother's reason--told her
+what to do. She drew her daughter to the open window, and called
+to Kitty to come in. The child (still amusing herself by fishing
+in the lake) laid down her rod. Mrs. Linley saw her running
+lightly along the little pier, on her way to the house. _That_
+influence effected what no other influence could have achieved.
+The outraged wife controlled herself, for the sake of her child.
+Mrs. Presty led her out to meet Kitty in the garden; waited until
+she saw them together; and returned to the breakfast-room.
+
+Herbert Linley's letter lay on the floor; his discreet
+mother-in-law picked it up. It could do no more harm now, and
+there might be reasons for keeping the husband's proposal.
+"Unless I am very much mistaken," Mrs. Presty concluded, "we
+shall hear more from the lawyer before long." She locked up the
+letter, and wondered what her daughter would do next.
+
+In half an hour Mrs. Linley returned--pale, silent,
+self-contained.
+
+She seated herself at her desk; wrote literally one line; signed
+it without an instant's hesitation, and folded the paper. Before
+it was secured in the envelope, Mrs. Presty interfered with a
+characteristic request. "You are writing to Mr. Linley, of
+course," she said. "May I see it?"
+
+Mrs. Linley handed the letter to her. The one line of writing
+contained these words: "I refuse positively to part with my
+child.--Catherine Linley."
+
+"Have you considered what is likely to happen, when he gets
+this?" Mrs. Presty inquired.
+
+"No, mamma."
+
+"Will you consult Randal?"
+
+"I would rather not consult him."
+
+"Will you let me consult him for you?"
+
+"Thank you--no."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"After what Randal has written to me, I don't attach any value to
+his opinion." With that reply she sent her letter to the post,
+and went back again to Kitty.
+
+After this, Mrs. Presty resolved to wait the arrival of Herbert
+Linley's answer, and to let events take their course. The view
+from the window (as she passed it, walking up and down the room)
+offered her little help in forecasting the future. Kitty had
+returned to her fishing; and Kitty's mother was walking slowly up
+and down the pier, deep in thought. Was she thinking of what
+might happen, and summoning the resolution which so seldom showed
+itself on ordinary occasions?
+
+
+Chapter XXV.
+
+
+Consultation.
+
+
+No second letter arrived. But a telegram was received from the
+lawyer toward the end of the week.
+
+"Expect me to-morrow on business which requires personal
+consultation."
+
+That was the message. In taking the long journey to Cumberland,
+Mrs. Linley's legal adviser sacrificed two days of his precious
+time in London. Something serious must assuredly have happened.
+
+In the meantime, who was the lawyer?
+
+He was Mr. Sarrazin, of Lincoln's Inn Fields.
+
+Was he an Englishman or a Frenchman?
+
+He was a curious mixture of both. His ancestors had been among
+the persecuted French people who found a refuge in England, when
+the priest-ridden tyrant, Louis the Fourteenth, revoked the Edict
+of Nantes. A British subject by birth, and a thoroughly
+competent and trustworthy man, Mr. Sarrazin labored under one
+inveterate delusion; he firmly believed that his original French
+nature had been completely eradicated, under the influence of our
+insular climate and our insular customs. No matter how often the
+strain of the lively French blood might assert itself, at
+inconvenient times and under regrettable circumstances, he never
+recognized this foreign side of his character. His excellent
+spirits, his quick sympathies, his bright mutability of mind--all
+those qualities, in short, which were most mischievously ready to
+raise distrust in the mind of English clients, before their
+sentiment changed for the better under the light of later
+experience--were attributed by Mr. Sarrazin to the exhilarating
+influence of his happy domestic circumstances and his successful
+professional career. His essentially English wife; his
+essentially English children; his whiskers, his politics, his
+umbrella, his pew at church, his plum pudding, his _Times_
+newspaper, all answered for him (he was accustomed to say) as an
+inbred member of the glorious nation that rejoices in hunting the
+fox, and believes in innumerable pills.
+
+This excellent man arrived at the cottage, desperately fatigued
+after his long journey, but in perfect possession of his
+incomparable temper, nevertheless.
+
+He afforded a proof of this happy state of mind, on sitting down
+to his supper. An epicure, if ever there was one yet, he found
+the solid part of the refreshments offered to him to consist of a
+chop. The old French blood curdled at the sight of it--but the
+true-born Englishman heroically devoted himself to the national
+meal. At the same time the French vivacity discovered a kindred
+soul in Kitty; Mr. Sarrazin became her intimate friend in five
+minutes. He listened to her and talked to her, as if the child
+had been his client, and fishing from the pier the business which
+had brought him from London. To Mrs. Presty's disgust, he turned
+up a corner of the table-cloth, when he had finished his chop,
+and began to conjure so deftly with the spoons and forks that
+poor little Kitty (often dull, now, under the changed domestic
+circumstances of her life) clapped her hands with pleasure, and
+became the joyous child of the happy old times once more. Mrs.
+Linley, flattered in her maternal love and her maternal pride,
+never thought of recalling this extraordinary lawyer to the
+business that was waiting to be discussed. But Mrs. Presty looked
+at the clock, and discovered that her grandchild ought to have
+been in bed half-an-hour ago.
+
+"Time to say good-night," the grandmother suggested.
+
+The grandchild failed to see the subject of bed in the same
+light. "Oh, not yet," she pleaded; "I want to speak to Mr.--"
+Having only heard the visitor's name once, and not finding her
+memory in good working order after the conjuring, Kitty
+hesitated. "Isn't your name something like Saracen?" she asked.
+
+"Very like!" cried the genial lawyer. "Try my other name, my
+dear. I'm Samuel as well as Sarrazin."
+
+"Ah, that'll do," said Kitty. "Grandmamma, before I go to bed,
+I've something to ask Samuel."
+
+Grandmamma persisted in deferring the question until the next
+morning. Samuel administered consolation before he said
+good-night. "I'll get up early," he whispered, "and we'll go on
+the pier before breakfast and fish."
+
+Kitty expressed her gratitude in her own outspoken way. "Oh,
+dear, how nice it would be, Samuel, if you lived with us!" Mrs.
+Linley laughed for the first time, poor soul, since the
+catastrophe which had broken up her home. Mrs. Presty set a
+proper example. She moved her chair so that she faced the lawyer,
+and said: "Now, Mr. Sarrazin!"
+
+He acknowledged that he understood what this meant, by a very
+unprofessional choice of words. "We are in a mess," he began,
+"and the sooner we are out of it the better."
+
+"Only let me keep Kitty," Mrs. Linley declared, "and I'll do
+whatever you think right."
+
+"Stick to that, dear madam, when you have heard what I have to
+tell you--and I shall not have taken my journey in vain. In the
+first place, may I look at the letter which I had the honor of
+forwarding some days since?"
+
+Mrs. Presty gave him Herbert Linley's letter. He read it with the
+closest attention, and tapped the breast-pocket of his coat when
+he had done.
+
+"If I didn't know what I have got here," he remarked, "I should
+have said: Another person dictated this letter, and the name of
+the person is Miss Westerfield."
+
+"Just my idea!" Mrs. Presty exclaimed. "There can't be a doubt of
+it."
+
+"Oh, but there is a very great doubt of it, ma'am; and you will
+say so too when you know what your severe son-in-law threatens to
+do." He turned to Mrs. Linley. "After having seen that pretty
+little friend of mine who has just gone to bed (how much nicer it
+would be for all of us if we could go to bed too!), I think I
+know how you answered your husband's letter. But I ought perhaps
+to see how you have expressed yourself. Have you got a copy?"
+
+"It was too short, Mr. Sarrazin, to make a copy necessary."
+
+"Do you mean you can remember it?"
+
+"I can repeat it word for word. This was my reply: I refuse,
+positively, to part with my child."
+
+"No more like that?"
+
+"No more."
+
+Mr. Sarrazin looked at his client with undisguised admiration.
+"The only time in all my long experience," he said, "in which I
+have found a lady's letter capable of expressing itself strongly
+in a few words. What a lawyer you will make, Mrs. Linley, when
+the rights of women invade my profession!"
+
+He put his hand into his pocket and produced a letter addressed
+to himself.
+
+Watching him anxiously, the ladies saw his bright face become
+overclouded with anxiety. "I am the wretched bearer of bad news,"
+he resumed, "and if I fidget in my chair, that is the reason for
+it. Let us get to the point--and let us get off it again as soon
+as possible. Here is a letter, written to me by Mr. Linley's
+lawyer. If you will take my advice you will let me say what the
+substance of it is, and then put it back in my pocket. I doubt if
+a woman has influenced these cruel instructions, Mrs. Presty;
+and, therefore, I doubt if a woman influenced the letter which
+led the way to them. Did I not say just now that I was coming to
+the point? and here I am wandering further and further away from
+it. A lawyer is human; there is the only excuse. Now, Mrs.
+Linley, in two words; your husband is determined to have little
+Miss Kitty; and the law, when he applies to it, is his obedient
+humble servant."
+
+"Do you mean that the law takes my child away from me?"
+
+"I am ashamed, madam, to think that I live by the law; but that,
+I must own, is exactly what it is capable of doing in the present
+case. Compose yourself, I beg and pray. A time will come when
+women will remind men that the mother bears the child and feeds
+the child, and will insist that the mother's right is the best
+right of the two. In the meanwhile--"
+
+"In the meanwhile, Mr. Sarrazin, I won't submit to the law."
+
+"Quite right, Catherine!" cried Mrs. Presty. "Exactly what I
+should do, in your place."
+
+Mr. Sarrazin listened patiently. "I am all attention, good
+ladies," he said, with the gentlest resignation. "Let me hear how
+you mean to do it."
+
+The good ladies looked at each other. They discovered that it is
+one thing to set an abuse at defiance in words, and another thing
+to apply the remedy in deeds. The kind-hearted lawyer helped them
+with a suggestion. "Perhaps you think of making your escape with
+the child, and taking refuge abroad?"
+
+Mrs. Linley eagerly accepted the hint. "The first train to-morrow
+morning starts at half-past seven," she said. "We might catch
+some foreign steamer that sails from the east coast of Scotland."
+
+Mrs. Presty, keeping a wary eye on Mr. Sarrazin, was not quite so
+ready as her daughter in rushing at conclusions. "I am afraid,"
+she acknowledged, "our worthy friend sees some objection. What is
+it?"
+
+"I don't presume to offer a positive opinion, ma'am; but I think
+Mr. Linley and his lawyer have their suspicions. Plainly
+speaking, I am afraid spies are set to watch us already."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"You shall hear. I travel second-class; one saves money and one
+finds people to talk to--and at what sacrifice? Only a hard
+cushion to sit on! In the same carriage with me there was a very
+conversable person--a smart young man with flaming red hair. When
+we took the omnibus at your station here, all the passengers got
+out in the town except two. I was one exception, and the smart
+young man was the other. When I stopped at your gate, the omnibus
+went on a few yards, and set down my fellow-traveler at the
+village inn. My profession makes me sly. I waited a little before
+I rang your bell; and, when I could do it without being seen, I
+crossed the road, and had a look at the inn. There is a moon
+to-night; I was very careful. The young man didn't see me. But I
+saw a head of flaming hair, and a pair of amiable blue eyes, over
+the blind of a window; and it happened to be the one window of
+the inn which commands a full view of your gate. Mere suspicion,
+you will say! I can't deny it, and yet I have my reasons for
+suspecting. Before I left London, one of my clerks followed me in
+a great hurry to the terminus, and caught me as I was opening the
+carriage door. 'We have just made a discovery,' he said; 'you and
+Mrs. Linley are to be reckoned up.' Reckoned up is, if you
+please, detective English for being watched. My clerk might have
+repeated a false report, of course. And my fellow-traveler might
+have come all the way from London to look out of the window of an
+inn, in a Cumberland village. What do you think yourselves?"
+
+It seemed to be easier to dispute the law than to dispute Mr.
+Sarrazin's conclusions.
+
+"Suppose I choose to travel abroad, and to take my child with
+me," Mrs. Linley persisted, "who has any right to prevent me?"
+
+Mr. Sarrazin reluctantly reminded her that the father had a
+right. "No person--not even the mother--can take the child out of
+the father's custody," he said, "except with the father's
+consent. His authority is the supreme authority--unless it
+happens that the law has deprived him of his privilege, and has
+expressly confided the child to the mother's care. Ha!" cried Mr.
+Sarrazin, twisting round in his chair and fixing his keen eyes on
+Mrs. Presty, "look at your good mother; _she_ sees what I am
+coming to."
+
+"I see something more than you think," Mrs. Presty answered. "If
+I know anything of my daughter's nature, you will find yourself,
+before long, on delicate ground."
+
+"What do you mean, mamma?"
+
+Mrs. Presty had lived in the past age when persons occasionally
+used metaphor as an aid to the expression of their ideas. Being
+called upon to explain herself, she did it in metaphor, to her
+own entire satisfaction.
+
+"Our learned friend here reminds me, my dear Catherine, of a
+traveler exploring a strange town. He takes a turning, in the
+confident expectation that it will reward him by leading him to
+some satisfactory result--and he finds himself in a blind alley,
+or, as the French put it (I speak French fluently), in a _cool de
+sack_. Do I make my meaning clear, Mr. Sarrazin?"
+
+"Not the least in the world, ma'am."
+
+"How very extraordinary! Perhaps I have been misled by my own
+vivid imagination. Let me endeavor to express myself plainly--let
+me say that my fancy looks prophetically at what you are going to
+do, and sincerely wishes you well out of it. Pray go on."
+
+"And pray speak more plainly than my mother has spoken," Mrs.
+Linley added. "As I understood what you said just now, there is a
+law, after all, that will protect me in the possession of my
+little girl. I don't care what it costs; I want that law."
+
+"May I ask first," Mr. Sarrazin stipulated, "whether you are
+positively resolved not to give way to your husband in this
+matter of Kitty?"
+
+"Positively."
+
+"One more question, if you please, on a matter of fact. I have
+heard that you were married in Scotland. Is that true?"
+
+"Quite true."
+
+Mr. Sarrazin exhibited himself once more in a highly
+unprofessional aspect. He clapped his hands, and cried, "Bravo!"
+as if he had been in a theater.
+
+Mrs. Linley caught the infection of the lawyer's excitement. "How
+dull I am!" she exclaimed. "There is a thing they call
+'incompatibility of temper'--and married people sign a paper at
+the lawyer's and promise never to trouble each other again as
+long as they both live. And they're readier to do it in Scotland
+than they are in England. That's what you mean--isn't it?"
+
+Mr. Sarrazin found it necessary to reassume his professional
+character.
+
+"No, indeed, madam," he said, "I should be unworthy of your
+confidence if I proposed nothing better than that. You can only
+secure the sole possession of little Kitty by getting the help of
+a judge--"
+
+"Get it at once," Mrs. Linley interposed.
+
+"And you can only prevail on the judge to listen to you," Mr.
+Sarrazin proceeded, "in one way. Summon your courage, madam.
+Apply for a divorce."
+
+There was a sudden silence. Mrs. Linley rose trembling, as if she
+saw--not good Mr. Sarrazin--but the devil himself tempting her.
+"Do you hear that?" she said to her mother.
+
+Mrs. Presty only bowed.
+
+"Think of the dreadful exposure!"
+
+Mrs. Presty bowed again.
+
+The lawyer had his opportunity now.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Linley," he asked, "what do you say?"
+
+"No--never!" She made that positive reply; and disposed
+beforehand of everything that might have been urged, in the way
+of remonstrance and persuasion, by leaving the room. The two
+persons who remained, sitting opposite to each other, took
+opposite views.
+
+"Mr. Sarrazin, she won't do it."
+
+"Mrs. Presty, she will."
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI.
+
+
+Decision.
+
+
+Punctual to his fishing appointment with Kitty, Mr. Sarrazin was
+out in the early morning, waiting on the pier.
+
+Not a breath of wind was stirring; the lazy mist lay asleep on
+the further shore of the lake. Here and there only the dim tops
+of the hills rose like shadows cast by the earth on the faint
+gray of the sky. Nearer at hand, the waters of the lake showed a
+gloomy surface; no birds flew over the colorless calm; no passing
+insects tempted the fish to rise. From time to time a last-left
+leaf on the wooded shore dropped noiselessly and died. No
+vehicles passed as yet on the lonely road; no voices were audible
+from the village; slow and straight wreaths of smoke stole their
+way out of the chimneys, and lost their vapor in the misty sky.
+The one sound that disturbed the sullen repose of the morning was
+the tramp of the lawyer's footsteps, as he paced up and down the
+pier. He thought of London and its ceaseless traffic, its roaring
+high tide of life in action--and he said to himself, with the
+strong conviction of a town-bred man: How miserable this is!
+
+A voice from the garden cheered him, just as he reached the end
+of the pier for the fiftieth time, and looked with fifty-fold
+intensity of dislike at the dreary lake.
+
+There stood Kitty behind the garden-gate, with a fishing-rod in
+each hand. A tin box was strapped on one side of her little body
+and a basket on the other. Burdened with these impediments, she
+required assistance. Susan had let her out of the house; and
+Samuel must now open the gate for her. She was pleased to observe
+that the raw morning had reddened her friend's nose; and she
+presented her own nose to notice as exhibiting perfect sympathy
+in this respect. Feeling a misplaced confidence in Mr. Sarrazin's
+knowledge and experience as an angler, she handed the
+fishing-rods to him. "My fingers are cold," she said; "you bait
+the hooks." He looked at his young friend in silent perplexity;
+she pointed to the tin box. "Plenty of bait there, Samuel; we
+find maggots do best." Mr. Sarrazin eyed the box with undisguised
+disgust; and Kitty made an unexpected discovery. "You seem to
+know nothing about it," she said. And Samuel answered, cordially,
+"Nothing!" In five minutes more he found himself by the side of
+his young friend--with his hook baited, his line in the water,
+and strict injunctions to keep an eye on the float.
+
+They began to fish.
+
+Kitty looked at her companion, and looked away again in silence.
+By way of encouraging her to talk, the good-natured lawyer
+alluded to what she had said when they parted overnight. "You
+wanted to ask me something," he reminded her. "What is it?"
+
+Without one preliminary word of warning to prepare him for
+the shock, Kitty answered: "I want you to tell me what has
+become of papa, and why Syd has gone away and left me. You know
+who Syd is, don't you?"
+
+The only alternative left to Mr. Sarrazin was to plead ignorance.
+While Kitty was instructing him on the subject of her governess,
+he had time to consider what he should say to her next. The
+result added one more to the lost opportunities of Mr. Sarrazin's
+life.
+
+"You see," the child gravely continued, "you are a clever man;
+and you have come here to help mamma. I have got that much out of
+grandmamma, if I have got nothing else. Don't look at me; look at
+your float. My papa has gone away and Syd has left me without
+even saying good-by, and we have given up our nice old house in
+Scotland and come to live here. I tell you I don't understand it.
+If you see your float begin to tremble, and then give a little
+dip down as if it was going to sink, pull your line out of the
+water; you will most likely find a fish at the end of it. When I
+ask mamma what all this means, she says there is a reason, and I
+am not old enough to understand it, and she looks unhappy, and
+she gives me a kiss, and it ends in that way. You've got a bite;
+no you haven't; it's only a nibble; fish are so sly. And
+grandmamma is worse still. Sometimes she tells me I'm a spoiled
+child; and sometimes she says well-behaved little girls don't ask
+questions. That's nonsense--and I think it's hard on me. You look
+uncomfortable. Is it my fault? I don't want to bother you; I only
+want to know why Syd has gone away. When I was younger I might
+have thought the fairies had taken her. Oh, no! that won't do any
+longer; I'm too old. Now tell me."
+
+Mr. Sarrazin weakly attempted to gain time: he looked at his
+watch. Kitty looked over his shoulder: "Oh, we needn't be in a
+hurry; breakfast won't be ready for half an hour yet. Plenty of
+time to talk of Syd; go on."
+
+Most unwisely (seeing that he had to deal with a clever child,
+and that child a girl), Mr. Sarrazin tried flat denial as a way
+out of the difficulty. He said: "I don't know why she has gone
+away." The next question followed instantly: "Well, then, what do
+you _think_ about it?" In sheer despair, the persecuted friend
+said the first thing that came into his head.
+
+"I think she has gone to be married."
+
+Kitty was indignant.
+
+"Gone to be married, and not tell me!" she exclaimed. "What do
+you mean by that?"
+
+Mr. Sarrazin's professional experience of women and marriages
+failed to supply him with an answer. In this difficulty he
+exerted his imagination, and invented something that no woman
+ever did yet. "She's waiting," he said, "to see how her marriage
+succeeds, before she tells anybody about it."
+
+This sounded probable to the mind of a child.
+
+"I hope she hasn't married a beast," Kitty said, with a serious
+face and an ominous shake of the head. "When shall I hear from
+Syd?"
+
+Mr. Sarrazin tried another prevarication--with better results
+this time. "You will be the first person she writes to, of
+course." As that excusable lie passed his lips, his float began
+to tremble. Here was a chance of changing the subject--"I've got
+a fish!" he cried.
+
+Kitty was immediately interested. She threw down her own rod, and
+assisted her ignorant companion. A wretched little fish appeared
+in the air, wriggling. "It's a roach," Kitty pronounced. "It's in
+pain," the merciful lawyer added; "give it to me." Kitty took it
+off the hook, and obeyed. Mr. Sarrazin with humane gentleness of
+handling put it back into the water. "Go, and God bless you,"
+said this excellent man, as the roach disappeared joyously with a
+flick of its tail. Kitty was scandalized. "That's not sport!" she
+said. "Oh, yes, it is," he answered--"sport to the fish."
+
+They went on with their angling. What embarrassing question would
+Kitty ask next? Would she want to be told why her father had left
+her? No: the last image in the child's mind had been the image of
+Sydney Westerfield. She was still thinking of it when she spoke
+again.
+
+"I wonder whether you're right about Syd?" she began. "You might
+be mistaken, mightn't you? I sometimes fancy mamma and Sydney may
+have had a quarrel. Would you mind asking mamma if that's true?"
+the affectionate little creature said, anxiously. "You see, I
+can't help talking of Syd, I'm so fond of her; and I do miss her
+so dreadfully every now and then; and I'm afraid--oh, dear, dear,
+I'm afraid I shall never see her again!" She let her rod drop on
+the pier, and put her little hands over her face and burst out
+crying.
+
+Shocked and distressed, good Mr. Sarrazin kissed her, and
+consoled her, and told another excusable lie.
+
+"Try to be comforted, Kitty; I'm sure you will see her again."
+
+His conscience reproached him as he held out that false hope. It
+could never be! The one unpardonable sin, in the judgment of
+fallible human creatures like herself, was the sin that Sydney
+Westerfield had committed. Is there something wrong in human
+nature? or something wrong in human laws? All that is best and
+noblest in us feels the influence of love--and the rules of
+society declare that an accident of position shall decide whether
+love is a virtue or a crime.
+
+These thoughts were in the lawyer's mind. They troubled him and
+disheartened him: it was a relief rather than an interruption
+when he felt Kitty's hand on his arm. She had dried her tears,
+with a child's happy facility in passing from one emotion to
+another, and was now astonished and interested by a marked change
+in the weather.
+
+"Look for the lake!" she cried. "You can't see it."
+
+A dense white fog was closing round them. Its stealthy advance
+over the water had already begun to hide the boathouse at the end
+of the pier from view. The raw cold of the atmosphere made the
+child shiver. As Mr. Sarrazin took her hand to lead her indoors,
+he turned and looked back at the faint outline of the boathouse,
+disappearing in the fog. Kitty wondered. "Do you see anything?"
+she asked.
+
+He answered that there was nothing to see, in the absent tone of
+a man busy with his own thoughts. They took the garden path which
+led to the cottage. As they reached the door he roused himself,
+and looked round again in the direction of the invisible lake.
+
+"Was the boat-house of any use now," he inquired--"was there a
+boat in it, for instance?" "There was a capital boat, fit to go
+anywhere." "And a man to manage it?" "To be sure! the gardener
+was the man; he had been a sailor once; and he knew the lake as
+well as--" Kitty stopped, at a loss for a comparison. "As well as
+you know your multiplication table?" said Mr. Sarrazin, dropping
+his serious questions on a sudden. Kitty shook her head. "Much
+better," she honestly acknowledged.
+
+Opening the breakfast-room door they saw Mrs. Presty making
+coffee. Kitty at once retired. When she had been fishing, her
+grandmamma inculcated habits of order by directing her to take
+the rods to pieces, and to put them away in their cases in the
+lumber-room. While she was absent, Mr. Sarrazin profited by the
+opportunity, and asked if Mrs. Linley had thought it over in the
+night, and had decided on applying for a Divorce.
+
+"I know nothing about my daughter," Mrs. Presty answered, "except
+that she had a bad night. Thinking, no doubt, over your advice,"
+the old lady added with a mischievous smile.
+
+"Will you kindly inquire if Mrs. Linley has made up her mind
+yet?" the lawyer ventured to say.
+
+"Isn't that your business?" Mrs. Presty asked slyly. "Suppose you
+write a little note, and I will send it up to her room." The
+worldly-wisdom which prompted this suggestion contemplated a
+possible necessity for calling a domestic council, assembled to
+consider the course of action which Mrs. Linley would do well to
+adopt. If the influence of her mother was among the forms of
+persuasion which might be tried, that wary relative maneuvered to
+make the lawyer speak first, and so to reserve to herself the
+advantage of having the last word.
+
+Patient Mr. Sarrazin wrote the note.
+
+He modestly asked for instructions; and he was content to receive
+them in one word--Yes or No. In the event of the answer being
+Yes, he would ask for a few minutes' conversation with Mrs.
+Linley, at her earliest convenience. Tha t was all.
+
+The reply was returned in a form which left Yes to be inferred:
+"I will receive you as soon as you have finished your breakfast."
+
+
+Chapter XXVII.
+
+
+Resolution.
+
+
+Having read Mrs. Linley's answer, Mr. Sarrazin looked out of the
+breakfast-room window, and saw that the fog had reached the
+cottage. Before Mrs. Presty could make any remark on the change
+in the weather, he surprised her by an extraordinary question.
+
+"Is there an upper room here, ma'am, which has a view of the road
+before your front gate?"
+
+"Certainly!"
+
+"And can I go into it without disturbing anybody?"
+
+Mrs. Presty said, "Of course!" with an uplifting of her eye brows
+which expressed astonishment not unmixed with suspicion. "Do you
+want to go up now?" she added, "or will you wait till you have
+had your breakfast?"
+
+"I want to go up, if you please, before the fog thickens. Oh,
+Mrs. Presty, I am ashamed to trouble you! Let the servant show me
+the room."
+
+No. For the first time in her life Mrs. Presty insisted on doing
+servant's duty. If she had been crippled in both legs her
+curiosity would have helped her to get up the stairs on her
+hands. "There!" she said, opening the door of the upper room, and
+placing herself exactly in the middle of it, so that she could
+see all round her: "Will that do for you?"
+
+Mr. Sarrazin went to the window; hid himself behind the curtain;
+and cautiously peeped out. In half a minute he turned his back on
+the misty view of the road, and said to himself: "Just what I
+expected."
+
+Other women might have asked what this mysterious proceeding
+meant. Mrs. Presty's sense of her own dignity adopted a system of
+independent discovery. To Mr. Sarrazin's amusement, she imitated
+him to his face. Advancing to the window, she, too, hid herself
+behind the curtain, and she, too, peeped out. Still following her
+model, she next turned her back on the view--and then she became
+herself again. "Now we have both looked out of window," she said
+to the lawyer, in her own inimitably impudent way, "suppose we
+compare our impressions."
+
+This was easily done. They had both seen the same two men walking
+backward and forward, opposite the front gate of the cottage.
+Before the advancing fog made it impossible to identify him, Mr.
+Sarrazin had recognized in one of the men his agreeable
+fellow-traveler on the journey from London. The other man--a
+stranger--was in all probability an assistant spy obtained in the
+neighborhood. This discovery suggested serious embarrassment in
+the future. Mrs. Presty asked what was to be done next. Mr.
+Sarrazin answered: "Let us have our breakfast."
+
+In another quarter of an hour they were both in Mrs. Linley's
+room.
+
+Her agitated manner, her reddened eyes, showed that she was still
+suffering under the emotions of the past night. The moment the
+lawyer approached her, she crossed the room with hurried steps,
+and took both his hands in her trembling grasp. "You are a good
+man, you are a kind man," she said to him wildly; "you have my
+truest respect and regard. Tell me, are
+you--really--really--really sure that the one way in which I can
+keep my child with me is the way you mentioned last night?"
+
+Mr. Sarrazin led her gently back to her chair.
+
+The sad change in her startled and distressed him. Sincerely,
+solemnly even, he declared that the one alternative before her
+was the alternative that he had mentioned. He entreated her to
+control herself. It was useless, she still held him as if she was
+holding to her last hope.
+
+"Listen to me!" she cried. "There's something more; there's
+another chance for me. I must, and will, know what you think of
+it."
+
+"Wait a little. Pray wait a little!"
+
+"No! not a moment. Is there any hope in appealing to the lawyer
+whom Mr. Linley has employed? Let me go back with you to London.
+I will persuade him to exert his influence--I will go down on my
+knees to him--I will never leave him till I have won him over to
+my side--I will take Kitty with me; he shall see us both, and
+pity us, and help us!"
+
+"Hopeless. Quite hopeless, Mrs. Linley."
+
+"Oh, don't say that!"
+
+"My dear lady, my poor dear lady, I must say it. The man you are
+talking of is the last man in the world to be influenced as you
+suppose. He is notoriously a lawyer, and nothing but a lawyer. If
+you tried to move him to pity you, he would say, 'Madam, I am
+doing my duty to my client'; and he would ring his bell and have
+you shown out. Yes! even if he saw you crushed and crying at his
+feet."
+
+Mrs. Presty interfered for the first time.
+
+"In your place, Catherine," she said, "I would put my foot down
+on that man and crush _him_. Consent to the Divorce, and you may
+do it."
+
+Mrs. Linley lay prostrate in her chair. The excitement which had
+sustained her thus far seemed to have sunk with the sinking of
+her last hope. Pale, exhausted, yielding to hard necessity, she
+looked up when her mother said, "Consent to the Divorce," and
+answered, "I have consented."
+
+"And trust me," Mr. Sarrazin said fervently, "to see that Justice
+is done, and to protect you in the meanwhile."
+
+Mrs. Presty added her tribute of consolation.
+
+"After all," she asked, "what is there to terrify you in the
+prospect of a Divorce? You won't hear what people say about
+it--for we see no society now. And, as for the newspapers, keep
+them out of the house."
+
+Mrs. Linley answered with a momentary revival of energy
+
+"It is not the fear of exposure that has tortured me," she said.
+"When I was left in the solitude of the night, my heart turned to
+Kitty; I felt that any sacrifice of myself might be endured for
+her sake. It's the remembrance of my marriage, Mr. Sarrazin, that
+is the terrible trial to me. Those whom God has joined together,
+let no man put asunder. Is there nothing to terrify me in setting
+that solemn command at defiance? I do it--oh, I do it--in
+consenting to the Divorce! I renounce the vows which I bound
+myself to respect in the presence of God; I profane the
+remembrance of eight happy years, hallowed by true love. Ah, you
+needn't remind me of what my husband has done. I don't forget how
+cruelly he has wronged me; I don't forget that his own act has
+cast me from him. But whose act destroys our marriage? Mine,
+mine! Forgive me, mamma; forgive me, my kind friend--the horror
+that I have of myself forces its way to my lips. No more of it!
+My child is my one treasure left. What must I do next? What must
+I sign? What must I sacrifice? Tell me--and it shall be done. I
+submit! I submit!"
+
+Delicately and mercifully Mr. Sarrazin answered that sad appeal.
+
+All that his knowledge, experience and resolution could suggest
+he addressed to Mrs. Presty. Mrs. Linley could listen or not
+listen, as her own wishes inclined. In the one case or in the
+other, her interests would be equally well served. The good
+lawyer kissed her hand. "Rest, and recover," he whispered. And
+then he turned to her mother--and became a man of business once
+more.
+
+"The first thing I shall do, ma'am, is to telegraph to my agent
+in Edinburgh. He will arrange for the speediest possible hearing
+of our case in the Court of Session. Make your mind easy so far."
+
+Mrs. Presty's mind was by this time equally inaccessible to
+information and advice. "I want to know what is to be done with
+those two men who are watching the gate," was all she said in the
+way of reply.
+
+Mrs. Linley raised her head in alarm.
+
+"Two!" she exclaimed--and looked at Mr. Sarrazin. "You only spoke
+of one last night."
+
+"And I add another this morning. Rest your poor head, Mrs.
+Linley, I know how it aches; I know how it burns." He still
+persisted in speaking to Mrs. Presty. "One of those two men will
+follow me to the station, and see me off on my way to London. The
+other will look after you, or your daughter, or the maid, or any
+other person who may try to get away into hiding with Kitty. And
+they are both keeping close to the gate, in the fear of losing
+sight of us in the fog."
+
+"I wish we lived in the Middle Ages!" said Mrs. Presty.
+
+"What would be the use of that, ma'am?"
+
+"Good heavens, Mr. Sarrazin, don't you see? In those grand old
+days you would have taken a dagger, and the gardener would have
+taken a dagger, and you would have stolen out, and stabbed those
+two villains as a matter of course. And this is the age of
+progress! The vilest rogue in existence is a sacred person whose
+life we are bound to respect. Ah, what good that national hero
+would have done who put his barrels of gunpowder in the right
+place on the Fifth of November! I have always said it, and I
+stick to it, Guy Fawkes was a great statesman."
+
+In the meanwhile Mrs. Linley was not resting, and not listening
+to the expression of her mother's political sentiments. She was
+intently watching Mr. Sarrazin's face.
+
+"There is danger threatening us," she said. "Do you see a way out
+of it?"
+
+To persist in trying to spare her was plainly useless; Mr.
+Sarrazin answered her directly.
+
+"The danger of legal proceedings to obtain possession of the
+child," he said, "is more near and more serious than I thought it
+right to acknowledge, while you were in doubt which way to
+decide. I was careful--too careful, perhaps--not to unduly
+influence you in a matter of the utmost importance to your future
+life. But you have made up your mind. I don't scruple now to
+remind you that an interval of time must pass before the decree
+for your Divorce can be pronounced, and the care of the child be
+legally secured to the mother. The only doubt and the only danger
+are there. If you are not frightened by the prospect of a
+desperate venture which some women would shrink from, I believe I
+see a way of baffling the spies."
+
+Mrs. Linley started to her feet. "Say what I am to do," she
+cried, "and judge for yourself if I am as easily frightened as
+some women."
+
+The lawyer pointed with a persuasive smile to her empty chair.
+"If you allow yourself to be excited," he said, "you will
+frighten me. Please--oh, please sit down again!"
+
+Mrs. Linley felt the strong will, asserting itself in terms of
+courteous entreaty. She obeyed. Mrs. Presty had never admired the
+lawyer as she admired him now. "Is that how you manage your
+wife?" she asked.
+
+Mr. Sarrazin was equal to the occasion, whatever it might be. "In
+your time, ma'am," he said, "did you reveal the mysteries of
+conjugal life?" He turned to Mrs. Linley. "I have something to
+ask first," he resumed, "and then you shall hear what I propose.
+How many people serve you in this cottage?"
+
+"Three. Our landlady, who is housekeeper and cook. Our own maid.
+And the landlady's daughter, who does the housework."
+
+"Any out-of-door servants?"
+
+"Only the gardener."
+
+"Can you trust these people?"
+
+"In what way, Mr. Sarrazin?"
+
+"Can you trust them with a secret which only concerns yourself?"
+
+"Certainly! The maid has been with us for years; no truer woman
+ever lived. The good old landlady often drinks tea with us. Her
+daughter is going to be married; and I have given the
+wedding-dress. As for the gardener, let Kitty settle the matter
+with him, and I answer for the rest. Why are you pointing to the
+window?"
+
+"Look out, and tell me what you see."
+
+"I see the fog."
+
+"And I, Mrs. Linley, have seen the boathouse. While the spies are
+watching your gate, what do you say to crossing the lake, under
+cover of the fog?"
+
+
+
+FOURTH BOOK.
+
+Chapter XXVIII.
+
+
+Mr. Randal Linley.
+
+
+Winter had come and gone; spring was nearing its end, and London
+still suffered under the rigid regularity of easterly winds.
+Although in less than a week summer would begin with the first of
+June, Mr. Sarrazin was glad to find his office warmed by a fire,
+when he arrived to open the letters of the day.
+
+The correspondence in general related exclusively to proceedings
+connected with the law. Two letters only presented an exception
+to the general rule. The first was addressed in Mrs. Linley's
+handwriting, and bore the postmark of Hanover. Kitty's mother had
+not only succeeded in getting to the safe side of the lake--she
+and her child had crossed the German Ocean as well. In one
+respect her letter was a remarkable composition. Although it was
+written by a lady, it was short enough to be read in less than a
+minute:
+
+
+
+"MY DEAR MR. SARRAZIN--I have just time to write by this
+evening's post. Our excellent courier has satisfied himself that
+the danger of discovery has passed away. The wretches have been
+so completely deceived that they are already on their way back to
+England, to lie in wait for us at Folkestone and Dover. To-morrow
+morning we leave this charming place--oh, how unwillingly!--for
+Bremen, to catch the steamer to Hull. You shall hear from me
+again on our arrival. Gratefully yours,
+
+
+CATHERINE LINLEY."
+
+
+
+Mr. Sarrazin put this letter into a private drawer and smiled as
+he turned the key. "Has she made up her mind at last?" he asked
+himself. "But for the courier, I shouldn't feel sure of her even
+now."
+
+The second letter agreeably surprised him. It was announced that
+the writer had just returned from the United States; it invited
+him to dinner that evening; and it was signed "Randal Linley." In
+Mr. Sarrazin's estimation, Randal had always occupied a higher
+place than his brother. The lawyer had known Mrs. Linley before
+her marriage, and had been inclined to think that she would have
+done wisely if she had given her hand to the younger brother
+instead of the elder. His acquaintance with Randal ripened
+rapidly into friendship. But his relations with Herbert made no
+advance toward intimacy: there was a gentlemanlike cordiality
+between them, and nothing more.
+
+At seven o'clock the two friends sat at a snug little table, in
+the private room of a hotel, with an infinite number of questions
+to ask of each other, and with nothing to interrupt them but a
+dinner of such extraordinary merit that it insisted on being
+noticed, from the first course to the last.
+
+Randal began. "Before we talk of anything else," he said, "tell
+me about Catherine and the child. Where are they?"
+
+"On their way to England, after a residence in Germany."
+
+"And the old lady?"
+
+"Mrs. Presty has been staying with friends in London."
+
+"What! have they parted company? Has there been a quarrel?"
+
+"Nothing of the sort; a friendly separation, in the strictest
+sense of the word. Oh, Randal, what are you about? Don't put
+pepper into this perfect soup. It's as good as the _gras double_
+at the Cafe Anglais in Paris."
+
+"So it is; I wasn't paying proper attention to it. But I am
+anxious about Catherine. Why did she go abroad?"
+
+"Haven't you heard from her?"
+
+"Not for six months or more. I innocently vexed her by writing a
+little too hopefully about Herbert. Mrs. Presty answered my
+letter, and recommended me not to write again. It isn't like
+Catherine to bear malice."
+
+"Don't even think such a thing possible!" the lawyer answered,
+earnestly. "Attribute her silence to the right cause. Terrible
+anxieties have been weighing on her mind since you went to
+America."
+
+"Anxieties caused by my brother? Oh, I hope not!"
+
+"Caused entirely by your brother--if I must tell the truth. Can't
+you guess how?"
+
+"Is it the child? You don't mean to tell me that Herbert has
+taken Kitty away from her mother!"
+
+"While I am her mother's lawyer, my friend, your brother won't do
+that. Welcome back to England in the first glass of sherry; good
+wine, but a little too dry for my taste. No, we won't talk of
+domestic troubles just yet. You shall hear all about it after
+dinner. What made you go to America? You haven't been delivering
+lectures, have you?"
+
+"I have been enjoying myself among the most hospitable people in
+the world."
+
+Mr. Sarrazin shook his head; he had a case of copyright in hand
+just then. "A people to be pitied," he said.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because their Government forgets what is due to the honor of the
+nation."
+
+"How?"
+
+"In this way. The honor of a nation which confers right of
+property in works of art, produced by its own citizens, is surely
+concerned in protecting from theft works of art produced by other
+citizens."
+
+"That's not the fault of the people."
+
+"Certainly not. I have already said it's the fault of the
+Government. Let's attend to the fish now."
+
+Randal took his friend's advice. "Good sauce, isn't it?" he said.
+
+The epicure entered a protest. "Good?" he repeated. "My dear
+fellow, it's absolute perfection. I don't like to cast a slur on
+English cookery. But think of melted butter, and tell me if
+anybody but a foreigner (I don't like foreigners, but I give them
+their due) could have produced this white wine sauce? So you
+really had no particular motive in going to America?"
+
+"On the contrary, I had a very particular motive. Just remember
+what my life used to be when I was in Scotland--and look at my
+life now! No Mount Morven; no model farm to look after; no
+pleasant Highland neighbors; I can't go to my brother while he is
+leading his present life; I have hurt Catherine's feelings; I
+have lost dear little Kitty; I am not obliged to earn my living
+(more's the pity); I don't care about politics; I have a pleasure
+in eating harmless creatures, but no pleasure in shooting them.
+What is there left for me to do, but to try change of scene, and
+go roaming around the world, a restless creature without an
+object in life? Have I done something wrong again? It isn't the
+pepper this time--and yet you're looking at me as if I was trying
+your temper."
+
+The French side of Mr. Sarrazin's nature had got the better of
+him once more. He pointed indignantly to a supreme preparation of
+fowl on his friend's plate. "Do I actually see you picking out
+your truffles, and putting them on one side?" he asked.
+
+"Well," Randal acknowledged, "I don't care about truffles."
+
+Mr. Sarrazin rose, with his plate in his hand and his fork ready
+for action. He walked round the table to his friend's side, and
+reverently transferred the neglected truffles to his own plate.
+"Randal, you will live to repent this," he said solemnly. "In the
+meantime, I am the gainer." Until he had finished the truffles,
+no word fell from his lips. "I think I should have enjoyed them
+more," he remarked, "if I had concentrated my attention by
+closing my eyes; but you would have thought I was going to
+sleep." He recovered his English nationality, after this, until
+the dessert had been placed on the table, and the waiter was
+ready to leave the room. At that auspicious moment, he underwent
+another relapse. He insisted on sending his compliments and
+thanks to the cook.
+
+"At last," said Randal, "we are by ourselves--and now I want to
+know why Catherine went to Germany."
+
+
+Chapter XXIX.
+
+Mr. Sarrazin.
+
+As a lawyer, Randal's guest understood that a narrative of events
+can only produce the right effect, on one condition: it must
+begin at the beginning. Having related all that had been said and
+done during his visit to the cottage, including his first efforts
+in the character of an angler under Kitty's supervision, he
+stopped to fill his glass again--and then astonished Randal by
+describing the plan that he had devised for escaping from the
+spies by crossing the lake in the fog.
+
+"What did the ladies say to it?" Randal inquired. "Who spoke
+first?"
+
+"Mrs. Presty, of course! She objected to risk her life on the
+water, in a fog. Mrs. Linley showed a resolution for which I was
+not prepared. She thought of Kitty, saw the value of my
+suggestion, and went away at once to consult with the landlady.
+In the meantime I sent for the gardener, and told him what I was
+thinking of. He was one of those stolid Englishmen, who possess
+resources which don't express themselves outwardly. Judging by
+his face, you would have said he was subsiding into a slumber
+under the infliction of a sermon, instead of listening to a
+lawyer proposing a stratagem. When I had done, the man showed the
+metal he was made of. In plain English, he put three questions
+which gave me the highest opinion of his intelligence. 'How much
+luggage, sir?' 'As little as they can conveniently take with
+them,' I said. 'How many persons?' 'The two ladies, the child,
+and myself.' 'Can you row, sir?' 'In any water you like, Mr.
+Gardener, fresh or salt'. Think of asking Me, an athletic
+Englishman, if I could row! In an hour more we were ready to
+embark, and the blessed fog was thicker than ever. Mrs. Presty
+yielded under protest; Kitty was wild with delight; her mother
+was quiet and resigned. But one circumstance occurred that I
+didn't quite understand--the presence of a stranger on the pier
+with a gun in his hand."
+
+"You don't mean one of the spies?"
+
+"Nothing of the sort; I mean an idea of the gardener's. He had
+been a sailor in his time--and that's a trade which teaches a man
+(if he's good for anything) to think, and act on his thought, at
+one and the same moment. He had taken a peep at the blackguards
+in front of the house, and had recognized the shortest of the two
+as a native of the place, perfectly well aware that one of the
+features attached to the cottage was a boathouse. 'That chap is
+not such a fool as he looks,' says the gardener. 'If he mentions
+the boat-house, the other fellow from London may have his
+suspicions. I thought I would post my son on the pier--that quiet
+young man there with the gun--to keep a lookout. If he sees
+another boat (there are half a dozen on this side of the lake)
+putting off after us, he has orders to fire, on the chance of our
+hearing him. A little notion of mine, sir, to prevent our being
+surprised in the fog. Do you see any objection to it?' Objection!
+In the days when diplomacy was something more than a solemn
+pretense, what a member of Congress that gardener would have
+made! Well, we shipped our oars, and away we went. Not quite
+haphazard--for we had a compass with us. Our course was as
+straight as we could go, to a village on the opposite side of the
+lake, called Brightfold. Nothing happened for the first quarter
+of an hour--and then, by the living Jingo (excuse my vulgarity),
+we heard the gun!"
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"Went on rowing, and held a council. This time I came out as the
+clever one of the party. The men were following us in the dark;
+they would have to guess at the direction we had taken, and they
+would most likely assume (in such weather as we had) that we
+should choose the shortest way across the lake. At my suggestion
+we changed our course, and made for a large town, higher up on
+the shore, called Tawley. We landed, and waited for events, and
+made no discovery of another boat behind us. The fools had
+justified my confidence in them--they had gone to Brightfold.
+There was half-an-hour to spare before the next train came to
+Tawley; and the fog was beginning to lift on that side of the
+lake. We looked at the shops; and I made a purchase in the town."
+
+"Stop a minute," said Randal. "Is Brightfold on the railway?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is there an electric telegraph at the place?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That was awkward, wasn't it? The first thing those men would do
+would be to telegraph to Tawley."
+
+"Not a doubt of it. How would they describe us, do you think?"
+
+Randal answered. "A middle-aged gentleman--two ladies, one of
+them elderly--and a little girl. Quite enough to identify you at
+Tawley, if the station-master understood the message."
+
+"Shall I tell you what the station-master discovered, with the
+message in his hand? No elderly lady, no middle-aged gentleman;
+nothing more remarkable than _one_ lady--and a little boy."
+
+Randal's face brightened. "You parted company, of course," he
+said; "and you disguised Kitty! How did you manage it?"
+
+"Didn't I say just now that we looked at the shops, and that I
+made a purchase in the town? A boy's ready-made suit--not at all
+a bad fit for Kitty! Mrs. Linley put on the suit, and tucked up
+the child's hair under a straw hat, in an empty yard--no idlers
+about in that bad weather. We said good-by, and parted, with
+grievous misgivings on my side, which proved (thank God!) to have
+been quite needless. Kitty and her mother went to the station,
+and Mrs. Presty and I hired a carriage, and drove away to the
+head of the lake, to catch the train to London. Do you know,
+Randal, I have altered my opinion of Mrs. Presty?"
+
+Randal smiled. "You too have found something in that old woman,"
+he said, "which doesn't appear on the surface."
+
+"The occasion seems to bring that something out," the lawyer
+remarked. "When I proposed the separation, and mentioned my
+reasons, I expected to find some difficulty in persuading Mrs.
+Presty to give up the adventurous journey with her daughter and
+her grandchild. I reminded her that she had friends in London who
+would receive her, and got snubbed for taking the liberty. 'I
+know that as well as you do. Come along--I'm ready to go with
+you.' It isn't agreeable to my self-esteem to own it, but I
+expected to hear her say that she would consent to any sacrifice
+for the sake of her dear daughter. No such clap-trap as that
+passed her lips. She owned the true motive with a superiority to
+cant which won my sincerest respect. 'I'll do anything,' she
+said, 'to baffle Herbert Linley and the spies he has set to watch
+us.' I can't tell you how glad I was that she had her reward on
+the same day. We were too late at the station, and we had to wait
+for the next train. And what do you think happened? The two
+scoundrels followed us instead of following Mrs. Linley! They had
+inquired no doubt at the livery stables where we hired the
+carriage--had recognized the description of us--and had taken the
+long journey to London for nothing. Mrs. Presty and I shook hands
+at the terminus the best friends that ever traveled together with
+the best of motives. After that, I think I deserve another glass
+of wine."
+
+"Go on with your story, and you shall have another bottle!" cried
+Randal. "What did Catherine and the child do after they left
+you?"
+
+"They did the safest thing--they left England. Mrs. Linley
+distinguished herself on this occasion. It was her excellent idea
+to avoid popular ports of departure, like Folkestone and Dover,
+which were sure to be watched, and to get away (if the thing
+could be done) from some place on the east coast. We consulted
+our guide and found that a line of steamers sailed from Hull to
+Bremen once a week. A tedious journey from our part of
+Cumberland, with some troublesome changing of trains, but they
+got there in time to embark. My first news of them reached me in
+a telegram from Bremen. There they waited for further
+instructions. I sent the instructions by a thoroughly capable and
+trustworthy man--an Italian courier, known to me by an experience
+of twenty years. Shall I confess it? I thought I had done rather
+a clever thing in providing Mrs. Linley with a friend in need
+while I was away from her."
+
+"I think so, too," said Randal.
+
+"Wrong, completely wrong. I had made a mistake--I had been too
+clever, and I got my reward accordingly. You know how I advised
+Mrs. Linley?"
+
+"Yes. You persuaded her, with the greatest difficulty, to apply
+for a Divorce."
+
+"Very well. I had made all the necessary arrangements for the
+trial, when I received a letter from Germany. My charming client
+had changed her mind, and declined to apply for the Divorce.
+There was my reward for having been too clever!"
+
+"I don't understand you."
+
+"My dear fellow, you are dull to-night. I had been so successful
+in protecting Mrs. Linley and the child, and my excellent courier
+had found such a charming place of retreat for them in one of the
+suburbs of Hanover, that 'she saw no reason now for taking the
+shocking course that I had recommended to her--so repugnant to
+all her most cherished convictions; so sinful and so shameful in
+its doing of evil that good might come. Experience had convinced
+her that (thanks to me) there was no fear of Kitty being
+discovered and taken from her. She therefore begged me to write
+to my agent in Edinburgh, and tell him that her application to
+the court was withdrawn.' Ah, you understand my position at last.
+The headstrong woman was running a risk which renewed all my
+anxieties. By every day's post I expected to hear that she had
+paid the penalty of her folly, and that your brother had
+succeeded in getting possession of the child. Wait a little
+before you laugh at me. But for the courier, the thing would have
+really happened a week since."
+
+Randal looked astonished. "Months must have passed," he objected.
+"Surely, after that lapse of time, Mrs. Linley must have been
+safe from discovery."
+
+"Take your own positive view of it! I only know that the thing
+happened. And why not? The luck had begun by being on one
+side--why shouldn't the other side have had its turn next?"
+
+"Do you really believe in luck?"
+
+"Devoutly. A lawyer must believe in something. He knows the law
+too well to put any faith in that: and his clients present to him
+(if he is a man of any feeling) a hideous view of human nature.
+The poor devil believes in luck--rather than believe in nothing.
+I think it quite likely that accident helped the person employed
+by the husband to discover the wife and child. Anyhow, Mrs.
+Linley and Kitty were seen in the streets of Hanover; seen,
+recognized, and followed. The courier happened to be with
+them--luck again! For thirty years and more, he had been
+traveling in every part of Europe; there was not a landlord of
+the smallest pretensions anywhere who didn't know him and like
+him. 'I pretended not to see that anybody was following us,' he
+said (writing from Hanover to relieve my anxiety); 'and I took
+the ladies to a hotel. The hotel possessed two merits from our
+point of view--it had a way out at the back, through the stables,
+and it was kept by a landlord who was an excellent good friend of
+mine. I arranged with him what he was to say when inquiries were
+made; and I kept my poor ladies prisoners in their lodgings for
+three days. The end of it is that Mr. Linley's policeman has gone
+away to watch the Channel steam-service, while we return quietly
+by way of Bremen and Hull.' There is the courier's account of it.
+I have only to add that poor Mrs. Linley has been fairly
+frightened into submission. She changes her mind again, and
+pledges herself once more to apply for the Divorce. If we are
+only lucky enough to get our case heard without any very serious
+delay, I am not afraid of my client slipping through my fingers
+for the second time. When will the courts of session be open to
+us? You have lived in Scotland, Randal--"
+
+"But I haven't lived in the courts of law. I wish I could give
+you the information you want."
+
+Mr. Sarrazin looked at his watch. "For all I know to the
+contrary," he said, "we may be wasting precious time while we are
+talking here. Will you excuse me if I go away to my club?"
+
+"Are you going in search of information?"
+
+"Yes. We have some inveterate old whist-players who are always to
+be found in the card-room. One of them formerly practiced, I
+believe, in the Scotch courts. It has just occurred to me that
+the chance is worth trying."
+
+"Will you let me know if you succeed?" Randal asked.
+
+The lawyer took his hand at parting. "You seem to be almost as
+anxious about it as I am," he said.
+
+"To tell you the truth, I am a little alarmed when I think of
+Catherine. If there is another long delay, how do we know what
+may happen before the law has confirmed the mother's claim to the
+child? Let me send one of the servants here to wait at your club.
+Will you give him a line telling me when the trial is likely to
+take place?"
+
+"With the greatest pleasure. Good-night."
+
+Left alone, Randal sat by the fireside for a while, thinking of
+the future. The prospect, as he saw it, disheartened him. As a
+means of employing his mind on a more agreeable subject for
+reflection, he opened his traveling desk and took out two or
+three letters. They had been addressed to him, while he was in
+America, by Captain Bennydeck.
+
+The captain had committed an error of which most of us have been
+guilty in our time. He had been too exclusively devoted to work
+that interested him to remember what was due to the care of his
+health. The doctor's warnings had been neglected; his
+over-strained nerves had given way; and the man whose strong
+constitution had resisted cold and starvation in the Arctic
+wastes, had broken down under stress of brain-work in London.
+
+This was the news which the first of the letters contained.
+
+The second, written under dictation, alluded briefly to the
+remedies suggested. In the captain's case, the fresh air
+recommended was the air of the sea. At the same time he was
+forbidden to receive either letters or telegrams, during his
+absence from town, until the doctor had seen him again. These
+instructions pointed, in Captain Bennydeck's estimation, to
+sailing for pleasure's sake, and therefore to hiring a yacht.
+
+The third and last letter announced that the yacht had been
+found, and described the captain's plans when the vessel was
+ready for sea.
+
+He proposed to sail here and there about the Channel, wherever
+it might please the wind to take him. Friends would accompany
+him, but not in any number. The yacht was not large enough to
+accommodate comfortably more than one or two guests at a time.
+Every now and then, the vessel would come to an anchor in the bay
+of the little coast town of Sandyseal, to accommodate friends
+going and coming and (in spite of medical advice) to receive
+letters. "You may have heard of Sandyseal," the Captain wrote,
+"as one of the places which have lately been found out by the
+doctors. They are recommending the air to patients suffering from
+nervous disorders all over England. The one hotel in the place,
+and the few cottages which let lodgings, are crammed, as I hear,
+and the speculative builder is beginning his operations at such a
+rate that Sandyseal will be no longer recognizable in a few
+months more. Before the crescents and terraces and grand hotels
+turn the town into a fashionable watering-place, I want to take a
+last look at scenes familiar to me under their old aspect. If you
+are inclined to wonder at my feeling such a wish as this, I can
+easily explain myself. Two miles inland from Sandyseal, there is
+a lonely old moated house. In that house I was born. When you
+return from America, write to me at the post-office, or at the
+hotel (I am equally well known in both places), and let us
+arrange for a speedy meeting. I wish I could ask you to come and
+see me in my birth-place. It was sold, years since, under
+instructions in my father's will, and was purchased for the use
+of a community of nuns. We may look at the outside, and we can do
+no more. In the meantime, don't despair of my recovery; the sea
+is my old friend, and my trust is in God's mercy."
+
+These last lines were added in a postscript:
+
+"Have you heard any more of that poor girl, the daughter of my
+old friend Roderick Westerfield--whose sad story would never have
+been known to me but for you? I feel sure that you have good
+reasons for not telling me the name of the man who has misled
+her, or the address at which she may be found. But you may one
+day be at liberty to break your silence. In that case, don't
+hesitate to do so because there may happen to be obstacles in my
+way. No difficulties discourage me, when my end in view is the
+saving of a soul in peril."
+
+Randal returned to his desk to write to the Captain. He had only
+got as far as the first sentences, when the servant returned with
+the lawyer's promised message. Mr. Sarrazin's news was
+communicated in these cheering terms:
+
+"I am a firmer believer in luck than ever. If we only make
+haste--and won't I make haste!--we may get the Divorce, as I
+calculate, in three weeks' time."
+
+
+
+Chapter XXX.
+
+
+The Lord President.
+
+
+Mrs. Linley's application for a Divorce was heard in the first
+division of the Court of Session at Edinburgh, the Lord President
+being the judge.
+
+To the disappointment of the large audience assembled, no defense
+was attempted on the part of the husband--a wise decision, seeing
+that the evidence of the wife and her witnesses was beyond
+dispute. But one exciting incident occurred toward the close of
+the proceedings. Sudden illness made Mrs. Linley's removal
+necessary, at the moment of all others most interesting to
+herself--the moment before the judge's decision was announced.
+
+But, as the event proved, the poor lady's withdrawal was the most
+fortunate circumstance that could have occurred, in her own
+interests. After condemning the husband's conduct with unsparing
+severity, the Lord President surprised most of the persons
+present by speaking of the wife in these terms:
+
+"Grievously as Mrs. Linley has been injured, the evidence shows
+that she was herself by no means free from blame. She has been
+guilty, to say the least of it, of acts of indiscretion. When the
+criminal attachment which had grown up between Mr. Herbert Linley
+and Miss Westerfield had been confessed to her, she appears to
+have most unreasonably overrated whatever merit there might have
+been in their resistance to the final temptation. She was indeed
+so impulsively ready to forgive (without waiting to see if the
+event justified the exercise of mercy) that she owns to having
+given her hand to Miss Westerfield, at parting, not half an hour
+after that young person's shameless forgetfulness of the claims
+of modesty, duty and gratitude had been first communicated to
+her. To say that this was the act of an inconsiderate woman,
+culpably indiscreet and, I had almost added, culpably indelicate,
+is only to say what she has deserved. On the next occasion to
+which I feel bound to advert, her conduct was even more deserving
+of censure. She herself appears to have placed the temptation
+under which he fell in her husband's way, and so (in some degree
+at least) to have provoked the catastrophe which has brought her
+before this court. I allude, it is needless to say, to her having
+invited the governess--then out of harm's way; then employed
+elsewhere--to return to her house, and to risk (what actually
+occurred) a meeting with Mr. Herbert Linley when no third person
+happened to be present. I know that the maternal motive which
+animated Mrs. Linley is considered, by many persons, to excuse
+and even to justify that most regrettable act; and I have myself
+allowed (I fear weakly allowed) more than due weight to this
+consideration in pronouncing for the Divorce. Let me express the
+earnest hope that Mrs. Linley will take warning by what has
+happened; and, if she finds herself hereafter placed in other
+circumstances of difficulty, let me advise her to exercise more
+control over impulses which one might expect perhaps to find in a
+young girl, but which are neither natural nor excusable in a
+woman of her age."
+
+His lordship then decreed the Divorce in the customary form,
+giving the custody of the child to the mother.
+
+                       * * * * *
+
+As fast as a hired carriage could take him, Mr. Sarrazin drove
+from the court to Mrs. Linley's lodgings, to tell her that the
+one great object of securing her right to her child had been
+achieved.
+
+At the door he was met by Mrs. Presty. She was accompanied by a
+stranger, whose medical services had been required. Interested
+professionally in hearing the result of the trial, this gentleman
+volunteered to communicate the good news to his patient. He had
+been waiting to administer a composing draught, until the
+suspense from which Mrs. Linley was suffering might be relieved,
+and a reasonable hope be entertained that the medicine would
+produce the right effect. With that explanation he left the room.
+
+While the doctor was speaking, Mrs. Presty was drawing her own
+conclusions from a close scrutiny of Mr. Sarrazin's face.
+
+"I am going to make a disagreeable remark," she announced. "You
+look ten years older, sir, than you did when you left us this
+morning to go to the Court. Do me a favor--come to the
+sideboard." The lawyer having obeyed, she poured out a glass of
+wine. "There is the remedy," she resumed, "when something has
+happened to worry you."
+
+"'Worry' isn't the right word," Mr. Sarrazin declared. "I'm
+furious! It's a most improper thing for a person in my position
+to say of a person in the Lord President's position; but I do say
+it--he ought to be ashamed of himself."
+
+"After giving us our Divorce!" Mrs. Presty exclaimed. "What has
+he done?"
+
+Mr. Sarrazin repeated what the judge had said of Mrs. Linley. "In
+my opinion," he added, "such language as that is an insult to
+your daughter."
+
+"And yet," Mrs. Presty repeated, "he has given us our Divorce."
+She returned to the sideboard, poured out a second dose of the
+remedy against worry, and took it herself. "What sort of
+character does the Lord President bear?" she asked when she had
+emptied her glass.
+
+This seemed to be an extraordinary question to put, under the
+circumstances. Mr. Sarrazin answered it, however, to the best of
+his ability. "An excellent character," he said--"that's the
+unaccountable part of it. I hear that he is one of the most
+careful and considerate men who ever sat on the bench. Excuse me,
+Mrs. Presty, I didn't intend to produce that impression on you."
+
+"What impression, Mr. Sarrazin?"
+
+"You look as if you thought there was some excuse for the judge."
+
+"That's exactly what I do think."
+
+"You find an excuse for him?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"What is it, ma'am?"
+
+"Constitutional infirmity, sir."
+
+"May I ask of what nature?"
+
+"You may. Gout."
+
+Mr. Sarrazin thought he understood her at last. "You know the
+Lord President," he said.
+
+Mrs. Presty denied it positively. "No, Mr. Sarrazin, I don't get
+at it in that way. I merely consult my experience of another
+official person of high rank, and apply it to the Lord President.
+You know that my first husband was a Cabinet Minister?"
+
+"I have heard you say so, Mrs. Presty, on more than one
+occasion."
+
+"Very well. You may also have heard that the late Mr. Norman was
+a remarkably well-bred man. In and out of the House of Commons,
+courteous almost to a fault. One day I happened to interrupt him
+when he was absorbed over an Act of Parliament. Before I could
+apologize--I tell you this in the strictest confidence--he threw
+the Act of Parliament at my head. Ninety-nine women out of a
+hundred would have thrown it back again. Knowing his
+constitution, I decided on waiting a day or two. On the second
+day, my anticipations were realized. Mr. Norman's great toe was
+as big as my fist and as red as a lobster; he apologized for the
+Act of Parliament with tears in his eyes. Suppressed gout in Mr.
+Norman's temper; suppressed gout in the Lord President's temper.
+_He_ will have a toe; and, if I can prevail upon my daughter to
+call upon him, I have not the least doubt he will apologize to
+her with tears in _his_ eyes."
+
+This interesting experiment was never destined to be tried. Right
+or wrong, Mrs. Presty's theory remained the only explanation of
+the judge's severity. Mr. Sarrazin attempted to change the
+subject. Mrs. Presty had not quite done with it yet. "There is
+one more thing I want to say," she proceeded. "Will his
+lordship's remarks appear in the newspapers?"
+
+"Not a doubt of it."
+
+"In that case I will take care (for my daughter's sake) that no
+newspapers enter the house to-morrow. As for visitors, we needn't
+be afraid of them. Catherine is not likely to be able to leave
+her room; the worry of this miserable business has quite broken
+her down."
+
+The doctor returned at that moment.
+
+Without taking the old lady's gloomy view of his patient, he
+admitted that she was in a low nervous condition, and he had
+reason to suppose, judging by her reply to a question which he
+had ventured to put, that she had associations with Scotland
+which made a visit to that country far from agreeable to her. His
+advice was that she should leave Edinburgh as soon as possible,
+and go South. If the change of climate led to no improvement, she
+would at least be in a position to consult the best physicians in
+London. In a day or two more it would be safe to remove
+her--provided she was not permitted to exhaust her strength by
+taking long railway journeys.
+
+Having given his advice, the doctor took leave. Soon after he had
+gone, Kitty made her appearance, charged with a message from Mrs.
+Linley's room.
+
+"Hasn't the physic sent your mother to sleep yet?" Mrs. Presty
+inquired.
+
+Kitty shook her head. "Mamma wants to go away tomorrow, and no
+physic will make her sleep till she has seen you, and settled
+about it. That's what she told me to say. If _I_ behaved in that
+way about my physic, I should catch it."
+
+Mrs. Presty left the room; watched by her granddaughter with an
+appearance of anxiety which it was not easy to understand.
+
+"What's the matter?" Mr. Sarrazin asked. "You look very serious
+to-day."
+
+Kitty held up a warning hand. "Grandmamma sometimes listens at
+doors," she whispered; "I don't want her to hear me." She waited
+a little longer, and then approached Mr. Sarrazin, frowning
+mysteriously. "Take me up on your knee," she said. "There's
+something wrong going on in this house."
+
+Mr. Sarrazin took her on his knee, and rashly asked what had gone
+wrong. Kitty's reply puzzled him.
+
+"I go to mamma's room every morning when I wake," the child
+began. "I get into her bed, and I give her a kiss, and I say
+'Good-morning'--and sometimes, if she isn't in a hurry to get up,
+I stop in her bed, and go to sleep again. Mamma thought I was
+asleep this morning. I wasn't asleep--I was only quiet. I don't
+know why I was quiet."
+
+Mr. Sarrazin's kindness still encouraged her. "Well," he said,
+"and what happened after that?"
+
+"Grandmamma came in. She told mamma to keep up her spirits. She
+says, 'It will all be over in a few hours more.' She says, 'What
+a burden it will be off your mind!' She says, 'Is that child
+asleep?' And mamma says, 'Yes.' And grandmamma took one of
+mamma's towels. And I thought she was going to wash herself. What
+would _you_ have thought?"
+
+Mr. Sarrazin began to doubt whether he would do well to discuss
+Mrs. Presty's object in taking the towel. He only said, "Go on."
+
+"Grandmamma dipped it into the water-jug," Kitty continued, with
+a grave face; "but she didn't wash herself. She went to one of
+mamma's boxes. Though she's so old, she's awfully strong, I can
+tell you. She rubbed off the luggage-label in no time. Mamma
+says, 'What are you doing that for?' And grandmamma says--this is
+the dreadful thing that I want you to explain; oh, I can remember
+it all; it's like learning lessons, only much nicer--grandmamma
+says, 'Before the day's over, the name on your boxes will be your
+name no longer.'"
+
+Mr. Sarrazin now became aware of the labyrinth into which his
+young friend had innocently led him. The Divorce, and the wife's
+inevitable return (when the husband was no longer the husband) to
+her maiden name--these were the subjects on which Kitty's desire
+for enlightenment applied to the wisest person within her reach,
+her mother's legal adviser.
+
+Mr. Sarrazin tried to put her off his knee. She held him round
+the neck. He thought of the railway as a promising excuse, and
+told her he must go back to London. She held him a little
+tighter. "I really can't wait, my dear;" he got up as he said it.
+Kitty hung on to him with her legs as well as her arms, and
+finding the position uncomfortable, lost her temper. "Mamma's
+going to have a new name," she shouted, as if the lawyer had
+suddenly become deaf. "Grandmamma says she must be Mrs. Norman.
+And I must be Miss Norman. I won't! Where's papa? I want to write
+to him; I know he won't allow it. Do you hear? Where's papa?"
+
+She fastened her little hands on Mr. Sarrazin's coat collar and
+tried to shake him, in a fury of resolution to know what it all
+meant. At that critical moment Mrs. Presty opened the door, and
+stood petrified on the threshold.
+
+"Hanging on to Mr. Sarrazin with her arms _and_ her legs!"
+exclaimed the old lady. "You little wretch, which are you, a
+monkey or a child?"
+
+The lawyer gently deposited Kitty on the floor.
+
+"Mind this, Samuel," she whispered, as he set her down on her
+feet, "I won't be Miss Norman."
+
+Mrs. Presty pointed sternly at the open door. "You were screaming
+just now, when quiet in the house is of the utmost importance to
+your mother. If I hear you again, bread and water and no doll for
+the rest of the week."
+
+Kitty retired in disgrace, and Mrs. Presty sharpened her tongue
+on Mr. Sarrazin next. "I'm astonished, sir, at your allowing that
+impudent grandchild of mine to take such liberties with you. Who
+would suppose that you were a married man, with children of your
+own?"
+
+"That's just the reason, my dear madam," Mr. Sarrazin smartly
+replied. "I romp with my own children--why not with Kitty? Can I
+do anything for you in London?" he went on, getting a little
+nearer to the door; "I leave Edinburgh by the next train. And I
+promise you," he added, with the spirit of mischief twinkling in
+his eyes, "this shall be my last confidential interview with your
+grandchild. When she wants to ask any more questions, I transfer
+her to you."
+
+Mrs. Presty looked after the retreating lawyer thoroughly
+mystified. What "confidential interview"? What "questions"? After
+some consideration, her experience of her granddaughter suggested
+that a little exercise of mercy might be attended with the right
+result. She looked at a cake on the sideboard. "I have only to
+forgive Kitty," she decided, "and the child will talk about it of
+her own accord."
+
+
+Chapter XXXI.
+
+Mr. Herbert Linley.
+
+Of the friends and neighbors who had associated with Herbert
+Linley, in bygone days, not more than two or three kept up their
+intimacy with him at the later time of his disgrace. Those few,
+it is needless to say, were men.
+
+One of the faithful companions, who had not shrunk from him yet,
+had just left the London hotel at which Linley had taken rooms
+for Sydney Westerfield and himself--in the name of Mr. and Mrs.
+Herbert. This old friend had been shocked by the change for the
+worse which he had perceived in the fugitive master of Mount
+Morven. Linley's stout figure of former times had fallen away, as
+if he had suffered under long illness; his healthy color had
+faded; he made an effort to assume the hearty manner that had
+once been natural to him which was simply pitiable to see. "After
+sacrificing all that makes life truly decent and truly enjoyable
+for a woman, he has got nothing, not even false happiness, in
+return!" With that dreary conclusion the retiring visitor
+descended the hotel steps, and went his way along the street.
+
+Linley returned to the newspaper which he had been reading when
+his friend was shown into the room.
+
+Line by line he followed the progress of the law report, which
+informed its thousands of readers that his wife had divorced him,
+and had taken lawful possession of his child. Word by word, he
+dwelt with morbid attention on the terms of crushing severity in
+which the Lord President had spoken of Sydney Westerfield and of
+himself. Sentence by sentence he read the reproof inflicted on
+the unhappy woman whom he had vowed to love and cherish. And
+then--even then--urged by his own self-tormenting suspicion, he
+looked for more. On the opposite page there was a leading
+article, presenting comments on the trial, written in the tone of
+lofty and virtuous regret; taking the wife's side against the
+judge, but declaring, at the same time, that no condemnation of
+the conduct of the husband and the governess could be too
+merciless, and no misery that might overtake them in the future
+more than they had deserved.
+
+He threw the newspaper on the table at his side, and thought over
+what he had read.
+
+If he had done nothing else, he had drained the bitter cup to the
+dregs. When he looked back, he saw nothing but the life that he
+had wasted. When his thoughts turned to the future, they
+confronted a prospect empty of all promise to a man still in the
+prime of life. Wife and child were as completely lost to him as
+if they had been dead--and it was the wife's doing. Had he any
+right to complain? Not the shadow of a right. As the newspapers
+said, he had deserved it.
+
+The clock roused him, striking the hour.
+
+He rose hurriedly, and advanced toward the window. As he crossed
+the room, he passed by a mirror. His own sullen despair looked at
+him in the reflection of his face. "She will be back directly,"
+he remembered; "she mustn't see me like this!" He went on to the
+window to divert his mind (and so to clear his face) by watching
+the stream of life flowing by in the busy street. Artificial
+cheerfulness, assumed love in Sydney's presence--that was what
+his life had come to already.
+
+If he had known that she had gone out, seeking a temporary
+separation, with _his_ fear of self-betrayal--if he had suspected
+that she, too, had thoughts which must be concealed: sad
+forebodings of losing her hold on his heart, terrifying
+suspicions that he was already comparing her, to her own
+disadvantage, with the wife whom he had deserted--if he had made
+these discoveries, what would the end have been? But she had,
+thus far, escaped the danger of exciting his distrust. That she
+loved him, he knew. That she had begun to doubt his attachment to
+her he would not have believed, if his oldest friend had declared
+it on the best evidence. She had said to him, that morning, at
+breakfast: "There was a good woman who used to let lodgings here
+in London, and who was very kind to me when I was a child;" and
+she had asked leave to go to the house, and inquire if that
+friendly landlady was still living--with nothing visibly
+constrained in her smile, and with no faltering tone in her
+voice. It was not until she was out in the street that the
+tell-tale tears came into her eyes, and the bitter sigh broke
+from her, and mingled its little unheard misery with the grand
+rise and fall of the tumult of London life. While he was still at
+the window, he saw her crossing the street on her way back to
+him. She came into the room with her complexion heightened by
+exercise; she kissed him, and said with her pretty smile: "Have
+you been lonely without me?" Who would have supposed that the
+torment of distrust, and the dread of desertion, were busy at
+this woman's heart?
+
+He placed a chair for her, and seating himself by her side asked
+if she felt tired. Every attention that she could wish for from
+the man whom she loved, offered with every appearance of
+sincerity on the surface! She met him halfway, and answered as if
+her mind was quite at ease.
+
+"No, dear, I'm not tired--but I'm glad to get back."
+
+"Did you find your old landlady still alive?"
+
+"Yes. But oh, so altered, poor thing! The struggle for life must
+have been a hard one, since I last saw her."
+
+"She didn't recognize you, of course?"
+
+"Oh! no. She looked at me and my dress in great surprise and said
+her lodgings were hardly fit for a young lady like me. It was too
+sad. I said I had known her lodgings well, many years ago--and,
+with that to prepare her, I told her who I was. Ah, it was a
+melancholy meeting for both of us. She burst out crying when I
+kissed her; and I had to tell her that my mother was dead, and my
+brother lost to me in spite of every effort to find him. I asked
+to go into the kitchen, thinking the change would be a relief to
+both of us. The kitchen used to be a paradise to me in those old
+days; it was so warm to a half-starved child--and I always got
+something to eat when I was there. You have no idea, Herbert, how
+poor and how empty the place looked to me now. I was glad to get
+out of it, and go upstairs. There was a lumber-room at the top of
+the house; I used to play in it, all by myself. More changes met
+me the moment I opened the door."
+
+"Changes for the better?"
+
+"My dear, it couldn't have changed for the worse! My dirty old
+play-room was cleaned and repaired; the lumber taken away, and a
+nice little bed in one corner. Some clerk in the City had taken
+the room--I shouldn't have known it again. But there was another
+surprise waiting for me; a happy surprise this time. In cleaning
+out the garret, what do you think the landlady found? Try to
+guess."
+
+Anything to please her! Anything to make her think that he was as
+fond of her as ever! "Was it something you had left behind you,"
+he said, "at the time when you lodged there."
+
+"Yes! you are right at the first guess--a little memorial of my
+father. Only some torn crumpled leaves from a book of children's
+songs that he used to teach me to sing; and a small packet of his
+letters, which my mother may have thrown aside and forgotten.
+See! I have brought them back with me; I mean to look over the
+letters at once--but this doesn't interest you?"
+
+"Indeed it does."
+
+He made that considerate reply mechanically, as if thinking of
+something else. She was afraid to tell him plainly that she saw
+this; but she could venture to say that he was not looking well.
+"I have noticed it for some time past," she confessed. "You have
+been accustomed to live in the country; I am afraid London
+doesn't agree with you."
+
+He admitted that she might be right; still speaking absently,
+still thinking of the Divorce. She laid the packet of letters and
+the poor relics of the old song-book on the table, and bent over
+him. Tenderly, and a little timidly, she put her arm around his
+neck. "Let us try some purer air," she suggested; "the seaside
+might do you good. Don't you think so?"
+
+"I daresay, my dear. Where shall we go?"
+
+"Oh, I leave that to you."
+
+"No, Sydney. It was I who proposed coming to London. You shall
+decide this time."
+
+She submitted, and promised to think of it. Leaving him, with the
+first expression of trouble that had shown itself in her face,
+she took up the songs and put them into the pocket of her dress.
+On the point of removing the letters next, she noticed the
+newspaper on the table. "Anything interesting to-day?" she
+asked--and drew the newspaper toward her to look at it. He took
+it from her suddenly, almost roughly. The next moment he
+apologized for his rudeness. "There is nothing worth reading in
+the paper," he said, after begging her pardon. "You don't care
+about politics, do you?"
+
+Instead of answering, she looked at him attentively.
+
+The heightened color which told of recent exercise, healthily
+enjoyed, faded from her face. She was silent; she was pale. A
+little confused, he smiled uneasily. "Surely," he resumed, trying
+to speak gayly, "I haven't offended you?"
+
+"There is something in the newspaper," she said, "which you don't
+want me to read."
+
+He denied it--but he still kept the newspaper in his own
+possession. Her voice sank low; her face turned paler still.
+
+"Is it all over?" she asked. "And is it put in the newspaper?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean the Divorce."
+
+He went back again to the window and looked out. It was the
+easiest excuse that he could devise for keeping his face turned
+away from her. She followed him.
+
+"I don't want to read it, Herbert. I only ask you to tell me if
+you are a free man again."
+
+Quiet as it was, her tone left him no alternative but to treat
+her brutally or to reply. Still looking out at the street, he
+said "Yes."
+
+"Free to marry, if you like?" she persisted.
+
+He said "Yes" once more--and kept his face steadily turned away
+from her. She waited a while. He neither moved nor spoke.
+
+Surviving the slow death little by little of all her other
+illusions, one last hope had lingered in her heart. It was killed
+by that cruel look, fixed on the view of the street.
+
+"I'll try to think of a place that we can go to at the seaside."
+Having said those words she slowly moved away to the door, and
+turned back, remembering the packet of letters. She took it up,
+paused, and looked toward the window. The streets still
+interested him. She left the room.
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXII.
+
+
+Miss Westerfield.
+
+
+She locked the door of her bedchamber, and threw off her
+walking-dress; light as it was, she felt as if it would stifle
+her. Even the ribbon round her neck was more than she could
+endure and breathe freely. Her overburdened heart found no relief
+in tears. In the solitude of her room she thought of the future.
+The dreary foreboding of what it might be, filled her with a
+superstitious dread from which she recoiled. One of the windows
+was open already; she threw up the other to get more air. In the
+cooler atmosphere her memory recovered itself; she recollected
+the newspaper, that Herbert had taken from her. Instantly she
+rang for the maid. "Ask the first waiter you see downstairs for
+today's newspaper; any one will do, so long as I don't wait for
+it." The report of the Divorce--she was in a frenzy of impatience
+to read what _he_ had read--the report of the Divorce.
+
+When her wish had been gratified, when she had read it from
+beginning to end, one vivid impression only was left on her mind.
+She could think of nothing but what the judge had said, in
+speaking of Mrs. Linley.
+
+A cruel reproof, and worse than cruel, a public reproof,
+administered to the generous friend, the true wife, the devoted
+mother--and for what? For having been too ready to forgive the
+wretch who had taken her husband from her, and had repaid a
+hundred acts of kindness by unpardonable ingratitude.
+
+She fell on her knees; she tried wildly to pray for inspiration
+that should tell her what to do. "Oh, God, how can I give that
+woman back the happiness of which I have robbed her!"
+
+The composing influence of prayer on a troubled mind was
+something that she had heard of. It was not something that she
+experienced now. An overpowering impatience to make the speediest
+and completest atonement possessed her. Must she wait till
+Herbert Linley no longer concealed that he was weary of her, and
+cast her off? No! It should be her own act that parted them, and
+that did it at once. She threw open the door, and hurried
+half-way down the stairs before she remembered the one terrible
+obstacle in her way--the Divorce.
+
+Slowly and sadly she submitted, and went back to her room.
+
+There was no disguising it; the two who had once been husband and
+wife were parted irrevocably--by the wife's own act. Let him
+repent ever so sincerely, let him be ever so ready to return,
+would the woman whose faith Herbert Linley had betrayed take him
+back? The Divorce, the merciless Divorce, answered:--No!
+
+She paused, thinking of the marriage that was now a marriage no
+more. The toilet-table was close to her; she looked absently at
+her haggard face in the glass. What a lost wretch she saw! The
+generous impulses which other women were free to feel were
+forbidden luxuries to her. She was ashamed of her wickedness; she
+was eager to sacrifice herself, for the good of the once-dear
+friend whom she had wronged. Useless longings! Too late! too
+late!
+
+She regretted it bitterly. Why?
+
+Comparing Mrs. Linley's prospects with hers, was there anything
+to justify regret for the divorced wife? She had her sweet little
+child to make her happy; she had a fortune of her own to lift her
+above sordid cares; she was still handsome, still a woman to be
+admired. While she held her place in the world as high as ever,
+what was the prospect before Sydney Westerfield? The miserable
+sinner would end as she had deserved to end. Absolutely dependent
+on a man who was at that moment perhaps lamenting the wife whom
+he had deserted and lost, how long would it be before she found
+herself an outcast, without a friend to help her--with a
+reputation hopelessly lost--face to face with the temptation to
+drown herself or poison herself, as other women had drowned
+themselves or poisoned themselves, when the brightest future
+before them was rest in death?
+
+If she had been a few years older, Herbert Linley might never
+again have seen her a living creature. But she was too young to
+follow any train of repellent thought persistently to its end.
+The man she had guiltily (and yet how naturally) loved was lord
+and master in her heart, doubt him as she might. Even in his
+absence he pleaded with her to have some faith in him still.
+
+She reviewed his language and his conduct toward her, when she
+had returned that morning from her walk. He had been kind and
+considerate; he had listened to her little story of the relics of
+her father, found in the garret, as if her interests were his
+interests. There had been nothing to disappoint her, nothing to
+complain of, until she had rashly attempted to discover whether
+he was free to make her his wife. She had only herself to blame
+if he was cold and distant when she had alluded to that delicate
+subject, on the day when he first knew that the Divorce had been
+granted and his child had been taken from him. And yet, he might
+have found a kinder way of reproving a sensitive woman than
+looking into the street--as if he had forgotten her in the
+interest of watching the strangers passing by! Perhaps he was not
+thinking of the strangers; perhaps his mind was dwelling fondly
+and regretfully on his wife?
+
+Instinctively, she felt that her thoughts were leading her back
+again to a state of doubt from which her youthful hopefulness
+recoiled. Was there nothing she could find to do which would
+offer some other subject to occupy her mind than herself and her
+future?
+
+Looking absently round the room, she noticed the packet of her
+father's letters placed on the table by her bedside.
+
+The first three letters that she examined, after untying the
+packet, were briefly written, and were signed by names unknown to
+her. They all related to race-horses, and to cunningly devised
+bets which were certain to make the fortunes of the clever
+gamblers on the turf who laid them. Absolute indifference on the
+part of the winners to the ruin of the losers, who were not in
+the secret, was the one feeling in common, which her father's
+correspondents presented. In mercy to his memory she threw the
+letters into the empty fireplace, and destroyed them by burning.
+
+The next letter which she picked out from the little heap was of
+some length, and was written in a clear and steady hand. By
+comparison with the blotted scrawls which she had just burned, it
+looked like the letter of a gentleman. She turned to the
+signature. The strange surname struck her; it was "Bennydeck."
+
+Not a common name, and not a name which seemed to be altogether
+unknown to her. Had she heard her father mention it at home in
+the time of her early childhood? There were no associations with
+it that she could now call to mind.
+
+She read the letter. It addressed her father familiarly as "My
+dear Roderick," and it proceeded in these words:--
+
+
+
+"The delay in the sailing of your ship offers me an opportunity
+of writing to you again. My last letter told you of my father's
+death. I was then quite unprepared for an event which has
+happened, since that affliction befell me. Prepare yourself to be
+surprised. Our old moated house at Sandyseal, in which we have
+spent so many happy holidays when we were schoolfellows, is sold.
+
+"You will be almost as sorry as I was to hear this; and you will
+be quite as surprised as I was, when I tell you that Sandyseal
+Place has become a Priory of English Nuns, of the order of St.
+Benedict.
+
+"I think I see you look up from my letter, with your big black
+eyes staring straight before you, and say and swear that this
+must be one of my mystifications. Unfortunately (for I am fond of
+the old house in which I was born) it is only too true. The
+instructions in my father's will, under which Sandyseal has been
+sold, are peremptory. They are the result of a promise made, many
+years since, to his wife.
+
+"You and I were both very young when my poor mother died; but I
+think you must remember that she, like the rest of her family,
+was a Roman Catholic.
+
+"Having reminded you of this, I may next tell you that Sandyseal
+Place was my mother's property. It formed part of her marriage
+portion, and it was settled on my father if she died before him,
+and if she left no female child to survive her. I am her only
+child. My father was therefore dealing with his own property when
+he ordered the house to be sold. His will leaves the purchase
+money to me. I would rather have kept the house.
+
+"But why did my mother make him promise to sell the place at his
+death?
+
+"A letter, attached to my father's will, answers this question,
+and tells a very sad story. In deference to my mother's wishes it
+was kept strictly a secret from me while my father lived.
+
+"There was a younger sister of my mother's who was the beauty of
+the family; loved and admired by everybody who was acquainted
+with her. It is needless to make this long letter longer by
+dwelling on the girl's miserable story. You have heard it of
+other girls, over and over again. She loved and trusted; she was
+deceived and deserted. Alone and friendless in a foreign country;
+her fair fame blemished; her hope in the future utterly
+destroyed, she attempted to drown herself. This took place in
+France. The best of good women--a Sister of Charity--happened to
+be near enough to the river to rescue her. She was sheltered; she
+was pitied; she was encouraged to return to her family. The poor
+deserted creature absolutely refused; she could never forget that
+she had disgraced them. The good Sister of Charity won her
+confidence. A retreat which would hide her from the world, and
+devote her to religion for the rest of her days, was the one end
+to her wasted life that she longed for. That end was attained in
+a Priory of Benedictine Nuns, established in France. There she
+found protection and peace--there she passed the remaining years
+of her life among devoted Sister-friends--and there she died a
+quiet and even a happy death.
+
+"You will now understand how my mother's grateful remembrance
+associated her with the interests of more than one community of
+Nuns; and you will not need to be told what she had in mind when
+she obtained my father's promise at the time of her last illness.
+
+"He at once proposed to bequeath the house as a free gift to the
+Benedictines. My mother thanked him and refused. She was thinking
+of me. 'If our son fails to inherit the house from his father,'
+she said, 'it is only right that he should have the value of the
+house in money. Let it be sold.'
+
+"So here I am--rich already--with this additional sum of money in
+my banker's care.
+
+"My idea is to invest it in the Funds, and to let it thrive at
+interest, until I grow older, and retire perhaps from service in
+the Navy. The later years of my life may well be devoted to the
+founding of a charitable institution, which I myself can
+establish and direct. If I die first--oh, there is a chance of
+it! We may have a naval war, perhaps, or I may turn out one of
+those incorrigible madmen who risk their lives in Arctic
+exploration. In case of the worst, therefore, I shall leave the
+interests of my contemplated Home in your honest and capable
+hands. For the present good-by, and a prosperous voyage outward
+bound."
+
+
+
+So the letter ended.
+
+Sydney dwelt with reluctant attention on the latter half of it.
+The story of the unhappy favorite of the family had its own
+melancholy and sinister interest for her. She felt the foreboding
+that it might, in some of its circumstances, be her story
+too--without the peaceful end. Into what community of merciful
+women could _she_ be received, in her sorest need? What religious
+consolations would encourage her penitence? What prayers, what
+hopes, would reconcile her, on her death-bed, to the common doom?
+
+She sighed as she folded up Captain Bennydeck's letter and put it
+in her bosom, to be read again. "If my lot had fallen among good
+people," she thought, "perhaps I might have belonged to the
+Church which took care of that poor girl."
+
+Her mind was still pursuing its own sad course of inquiry; she
+was wondering in what part of England Sandyseal might be; she was
+asking herself if the Nuns at the old moated house ever opened
+their doors to women, whose one claim on their common
+Christianity was the claim to be pitied--when she heard Linley's
+footsteps approaching the door.
+
+His tone was kind; his manner was gentle; his tender interest in
+her seemed to have revived. Her long absence had alarmed him; he
+feared she might be ill. "I was only thinking," she said. He
+smiled, and sat down by her, and asked if she had been thinking
+of the place that they should go to when they left London.
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIII.
+
+
+Mrs. Romsey.
+
+
+The one hotel in Sandyseal was full, from the topmost story to
+the ground floor; and by far the larger half of the landlord's
+guests were invalids sent to him by the doctors.
+
+To persons of excitable temperament, in search of amusement, the
+place offered no attractions. Situated at the innermost end of a
+dull little bay, Sandyseal--so far as any view of the shipping in
+the Channel was concerned--might have been built on a remote
+island in the Pacific Ocean. Vessels of any importance kept well
+out of the way of treacherous shoals and currents lurking at the
+entrance of the bay. The anchorage ground was good; but the depth
+of water was suited to small vessels only--to shabby old
+fishing-smacks which seldom paid their expenses, and to dirty
+little coasters carrying coals and potatoes. At the back of the
+hotel, two slovenly rows of cottages took their crooked course
+inland. Sailing masters of yachts, off duty, sat and yawned at
+the windows; lazy fishermen looked wearily at the weather over
+their garden gates; and superfluous coastguards gathered together
+in a wooden observatory, and leveled useless telescopes at an
+empty sea. The flat open country, with its few dwarf trees and
+its mangy hedges, lay prostrate under the sky in all the
+desolation of solitary space, and left the famous restorative air
+free to build up dilapidated nerves, without an object to hinder
+its passage at any point of the compass. The lonely drab-colored
+road that led to the nearest town offered to visitors, taking
+airings, a view of a low brown object in the distance, said to be
+the convent in which the Nuns lived, secluded from mortal eyes.
+At one side of the hotel, the windows looked on a little wooden
+pier, sadly in want of repair. On the other side, a walled
+inclosure accommodated yachts of light tonnage, stripped of their
+rigging, and sitting solitary on a bank of mud until their owners
+wanted them. In this neighborhood there was a small outlying colony
+of shops: one that sold fruit and fish; one that dealt in groceries
+and tobacco; one shut up, with a bill in the window inviting a
+tenant; and one, behind the Methodist Chapel, answering the
+double purpose of a post-office and a storehouse for ropes and
+coals. Beyond these objects there was nothing (and this was the
+great charm of the place) to distract the attention of invalids,
+following the doctor's directions, and from morning to night
+taking care of their health.
+
+
+
+The time was evening; the scene was one of the private
+sitting-rooms in the hotel; and the purpose in view was a little
+tea-party.
+
+Rich Mrs. Romsey, connected with commerce as wife of the chief
+partner in the firm of Romsey & Renshaw, was staying at the hotel
+in the interests of her three children. They were of delicate
+constitution; their complete recovery, after severe illness which
+had passed from one to the other, was less speedy than had been
+anticipated; and the doctor had declared that the nervous system
+was, in each case, more or less in need of repair. To arrive at
+this conclusion, and to recommend a visit to Sandyseal, were
+events which followed each other (medically speaking) as a matter
+of course.
+
+The health of the children had greatly improved; the famous air
+had agreed with them, and the discovery of new playfellows had
+agreed with them. They had made acquaintance with Lady Myrie's
+well-bred boys, and with Mrs. Norman's charming little Kitty. The
+most cordial good-feeling had established itself among the
+mothers. Owing a return for hospitalities received from Lady
+Myrie and Mrs. Norman, Mrs. Romsey had invited the two ladies to
+drink tea with her in honor of an interesting domestic event. Her
+husband, absent on the Continent for some time past, on business
+connected with his firm, had returned to England, and had that
+evening joined his wife and children at Sandyseal.
+
+Lady Myrie had arrived, and Mr. Romsey had been presented to her.
+Mrs. Norman, expected to follow, was represented by a courteous
+note of apology. She was not well that evening, and she begged to
+be excused.
+
+"This is a great disappointment," Mrs. Romsey said to her
+husband. "You would have been charmed with Mrs.
+Norman--highly-bred, accomplished, a perfect lady. And she leaves
+us to-morrow. The departure will not be an early one; and I shall
+find an opportunity, my dear, of introducing you to my friend and
+her sweet little Kitty."
+
+Mr. Romsey looked interested for a moment, when he first heard
+Mrs. Norman's name. After that, he slowly stirred his tea, and
+seemed to be thinking, instead of listening to his wife.
+
+"Have you made the lady's acquaintance here?" he inquired.
+
+"Yes--and I hope I have made a friend for life," Mrs. Romsey said
+with enthusiasm.
+
+"And so do I," Lady Myrie added.
+
+Mr. Romsey went on with his inquiries.
+
+"Is she a handsome woman?"
+
+Both the ladies answered the question together. Lady Myrie
+described Mrs. Norman, in one dreadful word, as "Classical." By
+comparison with this, Mrs. Romsey's reply was intelligible. "Not
+even illness can spoil her beauty!"
+
+"Including the headache she has got to-night?" Mr. Romsey
+suggested.
+
+"Don't be ill-natured, dear! Mrs. Norman is here by the advice of
+one of the first physicians in London; she has suffered under
+serious troubles, poor thing."
+
+Mr. Romsey persisted in being ill-natured. "Connected with her
+husband?" he asked.
+
+Lady Myrie entered a protest. She was a widow; and it was
+notorious among her friends that the death of her husband had
+been the happiest event in her married life. But she understood
+her duty to herself as a respectable woman.
+
+"I think, Mr. Romsey, you might have spared that cruel allusion,"
+she said with dignity.
+
+Mr. Romsey apologized. He had his reasons for wishing to know
+something more about Mrs. Norman; he proposed to withdraw his
+last remark, and to put his inquiries under another form. Might
+he ask his wife if anybody had seen _Mr._ Norman?
+
+"No."
+
+"Or heard of him?"
+
+Mrs. Romsey answered in the negative once more, and added a
+question on her own account. What did all this mean?
+
+"It means," Lady Myrie interposed, "what we poor women are all
+exposed to--scandal." She had not yet forgiven Mr. Romsey's
+allusion, and she looked at him pointedly as she spoke. There are
+some impenetrable men on whom looks produce no impression. Mr.
+Romsey was one of them. He turned to his wife, and said, quietly:
+"What I mean is, that I know more of Mrs. Norman than you do. I
+have heard of her--never mind how or where. She is a lady who has
+been celebrated in the newspapers. Don't be alarmed. She is no
+less a person than the divorced Mrs. Linley."
+
+The two ladies looked at each other in blank dismay. Restrained
+by a sense of conjugal duty, Mrs. Romsey only indulged in an
+exclamation. Lady Myrie, independent of restraint, expressed her
+opinion, and said: "Quite impossible!"
+
+"The Mrs. Norman whom I mean," Mr. Romsey went on, "has, as I
+have been told, a mother living. The old lady has been twice
+married. Her name is Mrs. Presty."
+
+This settled the question. Mrs. Presty was established, in her
+own proper person, with her daughter and grandchild at the hotel.
+Lady Myrie yielded to the force of evidence; she lifted her hands
+in horror: "This is too dreadful!"
+
+Mrs. Romsey took a more compassionate view of the disclosure.
+"Surely the poor lady is to be pitied?" she gently suggested.
+
+Lady Myrie looked at her friend in astonishment. "My dear, you
+must have forgotten what the judge said about her. Surely you
+read the report of the case in the newspapers?"
+
+"No; I heard of the trial, and that's all. What did the judge
+say?"
+
+"Say?" Lady Myrie repeated. "What did he not say! His lordship
+declared that he had a great mind not to grant the Divorce at
+all. He spoke of this dreadful woman who has deceived us in the
+severest terms; he said she had behaved in a most improper
+manner. She had encouraged the abominable governess; and if her
+husband had yielded to temptation, it was her fault. And more
+besides, that I don't remember."
+
+Mr. Romsey's wife appealed to him in despair. "What am I to do?"
+she asked, helplessly.
+
+"Do nothing," was the wise reply. "Didn't you say she was going
+away to-morrow?"
+
+"That's the worst of it!" Mrs. Romsey declared. "Her little girl
+Kitty gives a farewell dinner to-morrow to our children; and I've
+promised to take them to say good-by."
+
+Lady Myrie pronounced sentence without hesitation. "Of course
+your girls mustn't go. Daughters! Think of their reputations when
+they grow up!"
+
+"Are you in the same scrape with my wife?" Mr. Romsey asked.
+
+Lady Myrie corrected his language. "I have been deceived in the
+same way," she said. "Though my children are boys (which perhaps
+makes a difference) I feel it is my duty as a mother not to let
+them get into bad company. I do nothing myself in an underhand
+way. No excuses! I shall send a note and tell Mrs. Norman why she
+doesn't see my boys to-morrow."
+
+"Isn't that a little hard on her?" said merciful Mrs. Romsey.
+
+Mr. Romsey agreed with his wife, on grounds of expediency. "Never
+make a row if you can help it," was the peaceable principle to
+which this gentleman committed himself. "Send word that the
+children have caught colds, and get over it in that way."
+
+Mrs. Romsey looked gratefully at her admirable husband. "Just the
+thing!" she said, with an air of relief.
+
+Lady Myrie's sense of duty expressed itself, with the strictest
+adherence to the laws of courtesy. She rose, smiled resignedly,
+and said, "Good-night."
+
+Almost at the same moment, innocent little Kitty astonished her
+mother and her grandmother by appearing before them in her
+night-gown, after she had been put to bed nearly two hours since.
+
+"What will this child do next?" Mrs. Presty exclaimed.
+
+Kitty told the truth. "I can't go to sleep, grandmamma."
+
+"Why not, my darling?" her mother asked.
+
+"I'm so excited, mamma."
+
+"About what, Kitty?"
+
+"About my dinner-party to-morrow. Oh," said the child, clasping
+her hands earnestly as she thought of her playfellows, "I do so
+hope it will go off well!"
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIV.
+
+
+Mrs. Presty.
+
+
+Belonging to the generation which has lived to see the Age of
+Hurry, and has no sympathy with it, Mrs. Presty entered the
+sitting-room at the hotel, two hours before the time that had
+been fixed for leaving Sandyseal, with her mind at ease on the
+subject of her luggage. "My boxes are locked, strapped and
+labeled; I hate being hurried. What's that you're reading?" she
+asked, discovering a book on her daughter's lap, and a hasty
+action on her daughter's part, which looked like trying to hide
+it.
+
+Mrs. Norman made the most common, and--where the object is to
+baffle curiosity--the most useless of prevaricating replies. When
+her mother asked her what she was reading she answered:
+"Nothing."
+
+"Nothing!" Mrs. Presty repeated with an ironical assumption of
+interest. "The work of all others, Catherine, that I most want to
+read." She snatched up the book; opened it at the first page, and
+discovered an inscription in faded ink which roused her
+indignation. "To dear Catherine, from Herbert, on the anniversary
+of our marriage." What unintended mockery in those words, read by
+the later light of the Divorce! "Well, this is mean," said Mrs.
+Presty. "Keeping that wretch's present, after the public exposure
+which he has forced on you. Oh, Catherine!"
+
+Catherine was not quite so patient with her mother as usual.
+"Keeping my best remembrance of the happy time of my life," she
+answered.
+
+"Misplaced sentiment," Mrs. Presty declared; "I shall put the
+book out of the way. Your brain is softening, my dear, under the
+influence of this stupefying place."
+
+Catherine asserted her own opinion against her mother's opinion,
+for the second time. "I have recovered my health at Sandyseal,"
+she said. "I like the place, and I am sorry to leave it."
+
+"Give me the shop windows, the streets, the life, the racket, and
+the smoke of London," cried Mrs. Presty. "Thank Heaven, these
+rooms are let over our heads, and out we must go, whether we like
+it or not."
+
+This expression of gratitude was followed by a knock at the door,
+and by a voice outside asking leave to come in, which was, beyond
+all doubt, the voice of Randal Linley. With Catherine's book
+still in her possession, Mrs. Presty opened the table-drawer,
+threw it in, and closed the drawer with a bang. Discovering the
+two ladies, Randal stopped in the doorway, and stared at them in
+astonishment.
+
+"Didn't you expect to see us?" Mrs. Presty inquired.
+
+"I heard you were here, from our friend Sarrazin," Randal said;
+"but I expected to see Captain Bennydeck. Have I mistaken the
+number? Surely these are his rooms?"
+
+Catherine attempted to explain. "They _were_ Captain Bennydeck's
+rooms," she began; "but he was so kind, although we are perfect
+strangers to him--"
+
+Mrs. Presty interposed. "My dear Catherine, you have not had my
+advantages; you have not been taught to make a complicated
+statement in few words. Permit me to seize the points (in the
+late Mr. Presty's style) and to put them in the strongest light.
+This place, Randal, is always full; and we didn't write long
+enough beforehand to secure rooms. Captain Bennydeck happened to
+be downstairs when he heard that we were obliged to go away, and
+that one of us was a lady in delicate health. This sweetest of
+men sent us word that we were welcome to take his rooms, and that
+he would sleep on board his yacht. Conduct worthy of Sir Charles
+Grandison himself. When I went downstairs to thank him, he was
+gone--and here we have been for nearly three weeks; sometimes
+seeing the Captain's yacht, but, to our great surprise, never
+seeing the Captain himself."
+
+"There's nothing to be surprised at, Mrs. Presty. Captain
+Bennydeck likes doing kind things, and hates being thanked for
+it. I expected him to meet me here to-day."
+
+Catherine went to the window. "He is coming to meet you," she
+said. "There is his yacht in the bay."
+
+"And in a dead calm," Randal added, joining her. "The vessel will
+not get here, before I am obliged to go away again."
+
+Catherine looked at him timidly. "Do I drive you away?" she
+asked, in tones that faltered a little.
+
+Randal wondered what she could possibly be thinking of and
+acknowledged it in so many words.
+
+"She is thinking of the Divorce," Mrs. Presty explained. "You
+have heard of it, of course; and perhaps you take your brother's
+part?"
+
+"I do nothing of the sort, ma'am. My brother has been in the
+wrong from first to last." He turned to Catherine. "I will stay
+with you as long as I can, with the greatest pleasure," he said
+earnestly and kindly. "The truth is, I am on my way to visit some
+friends; and if Captain Bennydeck had got here in time to see me,
+I must have gone away to the junction to catch the next train
+westward, just as I am going now. I had only two words to say to
+the Captain about a person in whom he is interested--and I can
+say them in this way." He wrote in pencil on one of his visiting
+cards, and laid it on the table. "I shall be back in London, in a
+week," he resumed, "and you will tell me at what address I can
+find you. In the meanwhile, I miss Kitty. Where is she?"
+
+Kitty was sent for. She entered the room looking unusually quiet
+and subdued--but, discovering Randal, became herself again in a
+moment, and jumped on his knee.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Randal, I'm so glad to see you!" She checked herself,
+and looked at her mother. "May I call him Uncle Randal?" she
+asked. "Or has _he_ changed his name, too?"
+
+Mrs. Presty shook a warning forefinger at her granddaughter, and
+reminded Kitty that she had been told not to talk about names.
+Randal saw the child's look of bewilderment, and felt for her.
+"She may talk as she pleases to me," he said "but not to
+strangers. She understands that, I am sure."
+
+Kitty laid her cheek fondly against her uncle's cheek.
+"Everything is changed," she whispered. "We travel about; papa
+has left us, and Syd has left us, and we have got a new name. We
+are Norman now. I wish I was grown up, and old enough to
+understand it."
+
+Randal tried to reconcile her to her own happy ignorance. "You
+have got your dear good mother," he said, "and you have got me,
+and you have got your toys--"
+
+"And some nice boys and girls to play with," cried Kitty, eagerly
+following the new suggestion. "They are all coming here directly
+to dine with me. You will stay and have dinner too, won't you?"
+
+Randal promised to dine with Kitty when they met in London.
+Before he left the room he pointed to his card on the table. "Let
+my friend see that message," he said, as he went out.
+
+The moment the door had closed on him, Mrs. Presty startled her
+daughter by taking up the card and looking at what Randal had
+written on it. "It isn't a letter, Catherine; and you know how
+superior I am to common prejudices." With that defense of her
+proceeding, she coolly read the message:
+
+
+"I am sorry to say that I can tell you nothing more of your old
+friend's daughter as yet. I can only repeat that she neither
+needs nor deserves the help that you kindly offer to her."
+
+
+Mrs. Presty laid the card down again and owned that she wished
+Randal had been a little more explicit. "Who can it be?" she
+wondered. "Another young hussy gone wrong?"
+
+Kitty turned to her mother with a look of alarm. "What's a
+hussy?" she asked. "Does grandmamma mean me?" The great hotel
+clock in the hall struck two, and the child's anxieties took a
+new direction. "Isn't it time my little friends came to see me?"
+she said.
+
+It was half an hour past the time. Catherine proposed to send to
+Lady Myrie and Mrs. Romsey, and inquire if anything had happened
+to cause the delay. As she told Kitty to ring the bell, the
+waiter came in with two letters, addressed to Mrs. Norman.
+
+Mrs. Presty had her own ideas, and drew her own conclusions. She
+watched Catherine attentively. Even Kitty observed that her
+mother's face grew paler and paler as she read the letters. "You
+look as if you were frightened, mamma." There was no reply. Kitty
+began to feel so uneasy on the subject of her dinner and her
+guests, that she actually ventured on putting a question to her
+grandmother.
+
+"Will they be long, do you think, before they come?" she asked.
+
+The old lady's worldly wisdom had passed, by this time from a
+state of suspicion to a state of certainty. "My child," she
+answered, "they won't come at all."
+
+Kitty ran to her mother, eager to inquire if what Mrs. Presty had
+told her could possibly be true. Before a word had passed her
+lips, she shrank back, too frightened to speak.
+
+Never, in her little experience, had she been startled by such a
+look in her mother's face as the look that confronted her now.
+For the first time Catherine saw her child trembling at the sight
+of her. Before that discovery, the emotions that shook her under
+the insult which she had received lost their hold. She caught
+Kitty up in her arms. "My darling, my angel, it isn't you I am
+thinking of. I love you!--I love you! In the whole world there
+isn't such a good child, such a sweet, lovable, pretty child as
+you are. Oh, how disappointed she looks--she's crying. Don't
+break my heart!--don't cry!" Kitty held up her head, and cleared
+her eyes with a dash of her hand. "I won't cry, mamma." And child
+as she was, she was as good as her word. Her mother looked at her
+and burst into tears.
+
+Perversely reluctant, the better nature that was in Mrs. Presty
+rose to the surface, forced to show itself. "Cry, Catherine," she
+said kindly; "it will do you good. Leave the child to me."
+
+With a gentleness that astonished Kitty, she led her little
+granddaughter to the window, and pointed to the public walk in
+front of the house. "I know what will comfort you," the wise old
+woman began; "look out of the window." Kitty obeyed.
+
+"I don't see my little friends coming," she said. Mrs. Presty
+still pointed to some object on the public walk. "That's better
+than nothing, isn't it?" she persisted. "Come with me to the
+maid; she shall go with you, and take care of you." Kitty
+whispered, "May I give mamma a kiss first?" Sensible Mrs. Presty
+delayed the kiss for a while. "Wait till you come back, and then
+you can tell your mamma what a treat you have had." Arrived at
+the door on their way out, Kitty whispered again: "I want to say
+something"--"Well, what is it?"--"Will you tell the donkey-boy to
+make him gallop?"--"I'll tell the boy he shall have sixpence if
+you are satisfied; and you will see what he does then." Kitty
+looked up earnestly in her grandmother's face. "What a pity it is
+you are not always like what you are now!" she said. Mrs. Presty
+actually blushed.
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXV.
+
+
+
+Captain Bennydeck.
+
+
+For some time, Catherine and her mother had been left together
+undisturbed.
+
+Mrs. Presty had read (and destroyed) the letters of Lady Myrie
+and Mrs. Romsey, with the most unfeigned contempt for the
+writers--had repeated what the judge had really said, as
+distinguished from Lady Myrie's malicious version of it--and had
+expressed her intention of giving Catherine a word of advice,
+when she was sufficiently composed to profit by it. "You have
+recovered your good looks, after that fit of crying," Mrs. Presty
+admitted, "but not your good spirits. What is worrying you now?"
+
+"I can't help thinking of poor Kitty."
+
+"My dear, the child wants nobody's pity. She's blowing away all
+her troubles by a ride in the fresh air, on the favorite donkey
+that she feeds every morning. Yes, yes, you needn't tell me you
+are in a false position; and nobody can deny that it's shameful
+to make the child feel it. Now listen to me. Properly understood,
+those two spiteful women have done you a kindness. They have as
+good as told you how to protect yourself in the time to come.
+Deceive the vile world, Catherine, as it deserves to be deceived.
+Shelter yourself behind a respectable character that will spare
+you these insults in the future." In the energy of her
+conviction, Mrs. Presty struck her fist on the table, and
+finished in three audacious words: "Be a Widow!"
+
+It was plainly said--and yet Catherine seemed to be at a loss to
+understand what her mother meant.
+
+"Don't doubt about it," Mrs. Presty went on; "do it. Think of
+Kitty if you won't think of yourself. In a few years more she
+will be a young lady. She may have an offer of marriage which may
+be everything we desire. Suppose her sweetheart's family is a
+religious family; and suppose your Divorce, and the judge's
+remarks on it, are discovered. What will happen then?"
+
+"Is it possible that you are in earnest?" Catherine asked. "Have
+you seriously thought of the advice that you are giving me?
+Setting aside the deceit, you know as well as I do that Kitty
+would ask questions. Do you think I can tell my child that her
+father is dead? A lie--and such a dreadful lie as that?"
+
+"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Presty..
+
+"Nonsense?" Catherine repeated indignantly.
+
+"Rank nonsense," her mother persisted. "Hasn't your situation
+forced you to lie already? When the child asks why her father and
+her governess have left us, haven't you been obliged to invent
+excuses which are lies? If the man who was once your husband
+isn't as good as dead to _you_, I should like to know what your
+Divorce means! My poor dear, do you think you can go on as you
+are going on now? How many thousands of people have read the
+newspaper account of the trial? How many hundreds of
+people--interested in a handsome woman like you--will wonder why
+they never see Mr. Norman? What? You will go abroad again? Go
+where you may, you will attract attention; you will make an enemy
+of every ugly woman who looks at you. Strain at a gnat,
+Catherine, and swallow a camel. It's only a question of time.
+Sooner or later you will be a Widow. Here's the waiter again.
+What does the man want now?"
+
+The waiter answered by announcing:
+
+"Captain Bennydeck."
+
+Catherine's mother was nearer to the door than Catherine; she
+attracted the Captain's attention first. He addressed his
+apologies to her. "Pray excuse me for disturbing you--"
+
+Mrs. Presty had an eye for a handsome man, irrespective of what
+his age might be. In the language of the conjurors a "magic
+change" appeared in her; she became brightly agreeable in a
+moment.
+
+"Oh, Captain Bennydeck, you mustn't make excuses for coming into
+your own room!"
+
+Captain Bennydeck went on with his excuses, nevertheless. "The
+landlady tells me that I have unluckily missed seeing Mr. Randal
+Linley, and that he has left a message for me. I shouldn't
+otherwise have ventured--"
+
+Mrs. Presty stopped him once more. The Captain's claim to the
+Captain's rooms was the principle on which she took her stand.
+She revived the irresistible smiles which had conquered Mr.
+Norman and Mr. Presty. "No ceremony, I beg and pray! You are at
+home here--take the easy-chair!"
+
+Catherine advanced a few steps; it was time to stop her mother,
+if the thing could be done. She felt just embarrassment enough to
+heighten her color, and to show her beauty to the greatest
+advantage. It literally staggered the Captain, the moment he
+looked at her. His customary composure, as a well-bred man,
+deserted him; he bowed confusedly; he had not a word to say. Mrs.
+Presty seized her opportunity, and introduced them to each other.
+"My daughter Mrs. Norman--Captain Bennydeck." Compassionating him
+under the impression that he was a shy man, Catherine tried to
+set him at his ease. "I am indeed glad to have an opportunity of
+thanking you," she said, inviting him by a gesture to be seated.
+"In this delightful air, I have recovered my health, and I owe it
+to your kindness."
+
+The Captain regained his self-possession. Expressions of
+gratitude had been addressed to him which, in his modest estimate
+of himself, he could not feel that he had deserved.
+
+"You little know," he replied, "under what interested motives I
+have acted. When I established myself in this hotel, I was fairly
+driven out of my yacht by a guest who went sailing with me."
+
+Mrs. Presty became deeply interested. "Dear me, what did he do?"
+
+Captain Bennydeck answered gravely: "He snored."
+
+Catherine was amused; Mrs. Presty burst out laughing; the
+Captain's dry humor asserted itself as quaintly as ever. "This is
+no laughing matter," he resumed, looking at Catherine. "My vessel
+is a small one. For two nights the awful music of my friend's
+nose kept me sleepless. When I woke him, and said, 'Don't snore,'
+he apologized in the sweetest manner, and began again. On the
+third day I anchored in the bay here, determined to get a night's
+rest on shore. A dispute about the price of these rooms offered
+them to me. I sent a note of apology on board--and slept
+peacefully. The next morning, my sailing master informed me that
+there had been what he called 'a little swell in the night.' He
+reported the sounds made by my friend on this occasion to have
+been the awful sounds of seasickness. 'The gentleman left the
+yacht, sir, the first thing this morning,' he said; 'and he's
+gone home by railway.' On the day when you happened to arrive, my
+cabin was my own again; and I can honestly thank you for
+relieving me of my rooms. Do you make a long stay, Mrs. Norman?"
+
+Catherine answered that they were going to London by the next
+train. Seeing Randal's card still unnoticed on the table, she
+handed it to the Captain.
+
+"Is Mr. Linley an old friend of yours?" he asked, as he took the
+card.
+
+Mrs. Presty hastened to answer in the affirmative for her
+daughter. It was plain that Randal had discreetly abstained from
+mentioning his true connection with them. Would he preserve the
+same silence if the Captain spoke of his visit to Mrs. Norman,
+when he and his friend met next? Mrs. Presty's mind might have
+been at ease on that subject, if she had known how to appreciate
+Randal's character and Randal's motives. The same keen sense of
+the family disgrace, which had led him to conceal from Captain
+Bennydeck his brother's illicit relations with Sydney
+Westerfield, had compelled him to keep secret his former
+association, as brother-in-law, with the divorced wife. Her
+change of name had hitherto protected her from discovery by the
+Captain, and would in all probability continue to protect her in
+the future. The good Bennydeck had been enjoying himself at sea
+when the Divorce was granted, and when the newspapers reported
+the proceedings. He rarely went to his club, and he never
+associated with persons of either sex to whom gossip and scandal
+are as the breath of their lives. Ignorant of these
+circumstances, and remembering what had happened on that day,
+Mrs. Presty looked at him with some anxiety on her daughter's
+account, while he was reading the message on Randal's card. There
+was little to see. His fine face expressed a quiet sorrow, and he
+sighed as he put the card back in his pocket.
+
+An interval of silence followed. Captain Bennydeck was thinking
+over the message which he had just read. Catherine and her mother
+were looking at him with the same interest, inspired by very
+different motives. The interview so pleasantly begun was in some
+danger of lapsing into formality and embarrassment, when a new
+personage appeared on the scene.
+
+Kitty had returned in triumph from her ride. "Mamma! the donkey
+did more than gallop--he kicked, and I fell off. Oh, I'm not
+hurt!" cried the child, seeing the alarm in her mother's face.
+"Tumbling off is such a funny sensation. It isn't as if you fell
+on the ground; it's as if the ground came up to _you_ and
+said--Bump!" She had got as far as that, when the progress of her
+narrative was suspended by the discovery of a strange gentleman
+in the room.
+
+The smile that brightened the captain's face, when Kitty opened
+the door, answered for him as a man who loved children. "Your
+little girl, Mrs. Norman?" he said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+(A common question and a common reply. Nothing worth noticing, in
+either the one or the other, at the time--and yet they proved to
+be important enough to turn Catherine's life into a new course.)
+
+In the meanwhile, Kitty had been whispering to her mother. She
+wanted to know the strange gentleman's name. The Captain heard
+her. "My name is Bennydeck," he said; "will you come to me?"
+
+Kitty had heard the name mentioned in connection with a yacht.
+Like all children, she knew a friend the moment she looked at
+him. "I've seen your pretty boat, sir," she said, crossing the
+room to Captain Bennydeck. "Is it very nice when you go sailing?"
+
+"If you were not going back to London, my dear, I should ask your
+mamma to let me take you sailing with me. Perhaps we shall have
+another opportunity."
+
+The Captain's answer delighted Kitty. "Oh, yes, tomorrow or next
+day!" she suggested. "Do you know where to find me in London?
+Mamma, where do I live, when I am in London?" Before her mother
+could answer, she hit on a new idea. "Don't tell me; I'll find it
+for myself. It's on grandmamma's boxes, and they're in the
+passage."
+
+Captain Bennydeck's eyes followed her, as she left the room, with
+an expression of interest which more than confirmed the favorable
+impression that he had already produced on Catherine. She was on
+the point of asking if he was married, and had children of his
+own, when Kitty came back, and declared the right address to be
+Buck's Hotel, Sydenham. "Mamma puts things down for fear of
+forgetting them," she added. "Will you put down Buck?"
+
+The Captain took out his pocketbook, and appealed pleasantly to
+Mrs. Norman. "May I follow your example?" he asked. Catherine not
+only humored the little joke, but, gratefully remembering his
+kindness, said: "Don't forget, when you are in London, that
+Kitty's invitation is my invitation, too." At the same moment,
+punctual Mrs. Presty looked at her watch, and reminded her
+daughter that railways were not in the habit of allowing
+passengers to keep them waiting. Catherine rose, and gave her
+hand to the Captain at parting. Kitty improved on her mother's
+form of farewell; she gave him a kiss and whispered a little
+reminder of her own: "There's a river in London--don't forget
+your boat."
+
+Captain Bennydeck opened the door for them, secretly wishing that
+he could follow Mrs. Norman to the station and travel by the same
+train.
+
+Mrs. Presty made no attempt to remind him that she was still in
+the room. Where her family interests were concerned, the old lady
+was capable (on very slight encouragement) of looking a long way
+into the future. She was looking into the future now. The
+Captain's social position was all that could be desired; he was
+evidently in easy pecuniary circumstances; he admired Catherine
+and Catherine's child. If he only proved to be a single man, Mrs.
+Presty's prophetic soul, without waiting an instant to reflect,
+perceived a dazzling future. Captain Bennydeck approached to take
+leave. "Not just yet," pleaded the most agreeable of women; "my
+luggage was ready two hours ago. Sit down again for a few
+minutes. You seem to like my little granddaughter."
+
+"If I had such a child as that," the Captain answered, "I believe
+I should be the happiest man living."
+
+"Ah, my dear sir, all isn't gold that glitters," Mrs. Presty
+remarked. "That proverb must have been originally intended to
+apply to children. May I presume to make you the subject of a
+guess? I fancy you are not a married man."
+
+The Captain looked a little surprised. "You are quite right," he
+said; "I have never been married."
+
+At a later period, Mrs. Presty owned that she felt an inclination
+to reward him for confessing himself to be a bachelor, by a kiss.
+He innocently checked that impulse by putting a question. "Had
+you any particular reason," he asked, "for guessing that I was a
+single man?"
+
+Mrs. Presty modestly acknowledged that she had only her own
+experience to help her. "You wouldn't be quite so fond of other
+people's children," she said, "if you were a married man. Ah,
+your time will come yet--I mean your wife will come."
+
+He answered this sadly. "My time has gone by. I have never had
+the opportunities that have been granted to some favored men." He
+thought of the favored man who had married Mrs. Norman. Was her
+husband worthy of his happiness? "Is Mr. Norman with you at this
+place?" the Captain asked.
+
+Serious issues depended on the manner in which this question was
+answered. For one moment, and for one moment only, Mrs. Presty
+hesitated. Then (in her daughter's interest, of course) she put
+Catherine in the position of a widow, in the least blamable of
+all possible ways, by honestly owning the truth.
+
+"There is no Mr. Norman," she said.
+
+"Your daughter is a widow!" cried the Captain, perfectly unable
+to control his delight at that discovery.
+
+"What else should she be?" Mrs. Presty replied, facetiously.
+
+What else, indeed! If "no Mr. Norman" meant (as it must surely
+mean) that Mr. Norman was dead, and if the beautiful mother of
+Kitty was an honest woman, her social position was beyond a
+doubt. Captain Bennydeck felt a little ashamed of his own
+impetuosity. Before he had made up his mind what to say next, the
+unlucky waiter (doomed to be a cause of disturbance on that day)
+appeared again.
+
+"I beg your pardon, ma'am," he said; "the lady and gentleman who
+have taken these rooms have just arrived."
+
+Mrs. Presty got up in a hurry, and cordially shook hands with the
+Captain. Looking round, she took up the railway guide and her
+knitting left on the table. Was there anything else left about?
+There was nothing to be seen. Mrs. Presty crossed the passage to
+her daughter's bedroom, to hurry the packing. Captain Bennydeck
+went downstairs, on his way back to the yacht.
+
+In the hall of the hotel he passed the lady and gentleman--and,
+of course, noticed the lady. She was little and dark and would
+have been pretty, if she had not looked ill and out of spirits.
+What would he have said, what would he have done, if he had known
+that those two strangers were Randal Linley's brother and
+Roderick Westerfield's daughter?
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVI
+
+
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Herbert.
+
+
+The stealthy influence of distrust fastens its hold on the mind
+by slow degrees. Little by little it reaches its fatal end, and
+disguises delusion successfully under the garb of truth.
+
+Day after day, the false conviction grew on Sydney's mind that
+Herbert Linley was comparing the life he led now with the happier
+life which he remembered at Mount Morven. Day after day, her
+unreasoning fear contemplated the time when Herbert Linley would
+leave her friendless, in the world that had no place in it for
+women like herself. Delusion--fatal delusion that looked like
+truth! Morally weak as he might be, the man whom she feared to
+trust had not yet entirely lost the sense which birth and
+breeding had firmly fastened in him--the sense of honor. Acting
+under that influence, he was (if the expression may be permitted)
+consistent even in inconsistency. With equal sincerity of
+feeling, he reproached himself for his infidelity toward the
+woman whom he had deserted, and devoted himself to his duty
+toward the woman whom he had misled. In Sydney's presence--suffer
+as he might under the struggle to maintain his resolution when he
+was alone--he kept his intercourse with her studiously gentle in
+manner, and considerate in language; his conduct offered
+assurances for the future which she could only see through the
+falsifying medium of her own distrust.
+
+In the delusion that now possessed her she read, over and over
+again, the letter which Captain Bennydeck had addressed to her
+father; she saw, more and more clearly, the circumstances which
+associated her situation with the situation of the poor girl who
+had closed her wasted life among the nuns in a French convent.
+
+Two results followed on this state of things.
+
+When Herbert asked to what part of England they should go, on
+leaving London, she mentioned Sandyseal as a place that she had
+heard of, and felt some curiosity to see. The same day--bent on
+pleasing her, careless where he lived now, at home or abroad--he
+wrote to engage rooms at the hotel.
+
+A time followed, during which they were obliged to wait until
+rooms were free. In this interval, brooding over the melancholy
+absence of a friend or relative in whom she could confide, her
+morbid dread of the future decided her on completing the parallel
+between herself and that other lost creature of whom she had
+read. Sydney opened communication anonymously with the
+Benedictine community at Sandyseal.
+
+She addressed the Mother Superior; telling the truth about
+herself with but one concealment, the concealment of names. She
+revealed her isolated position among her fellow-creatures; she
+declared her fervent desire to repent of her wickedness, and to
+lead a religious life; she acknowledged her misfortune in having
+been brought up by persons careless of religion, and she
+confessed to having attended a Protestant place of worship, as a
+mere matter of form connected with the duties of a teacher at a
+school. "The religion of any Christian woman who will help me to
+be more like herself," she wrote, "is the religion to which I am
+willing and eager to belong. If I come to you in my distress,
+will you receive me?" To that simple appeal, she added a request
+that an answer might be addressed to "S.W., Post-office,
+Sandyseal."
+
+When Captain Bennydeck and Sydney Westerfield passed each other
+as strangers, in the hall of the hotel, that letter had been
+posted in London a week since.
+
+
+
+The servant showed "Mr. and Mrs. Herbert" into their
+sitting-room, and begged that they would be so good as to wait
+for a few minutes, while the other rooms were being prepared for
+them.
+
+Sydney seated herself in silence. She was thinking of her letter,
+and wondering whether a reply was waiting for her at the
+post-office.
+
+Moving toward the window to look at the view, Herbert paused to
+examine some prints hanging on the walls, which were superior as
+works of art to the customary decorations of a room at a hotel.
+If he had gone straight to the window he might have seen his
+divorced wife, his child, and his wife's mother, getting into the
+carriage which took them to the railway station.
+
+"Come, Sydney," he said, "and look at the sea."
+
+She joined him wearily, with a faint smile. It was a calm, sunny
+day. Bathing machines were on the beach; children were playing
+here and there; and white sails of pleasure boats were visible in
+the offing. The dullness of Sandyseal wore a quiet homely aspect
+which was pleasant to the eyes of strangers. Sydney said,
+absently, "I think I shall like the place." And Herbert added:
+"Let us hope that the air will make you feel stronger." He meant
+it and said it kindly--but, instead of looking at her while he
+spoke, he continued to look at the view. A woman sure of her
+position would not have allowed this trifling circumstance, even
+if she had observed it, to disturb her. Sydney thought of the day
+in London when he had persisted in looking out at the street, and
+returned in silence to her chair.
+
+Had he been so unfortunate as to offend her? And in what way? As
+that doubt occurred to Herbert his mind turned to Catherine.
+_She_ never took offense at trifles; a word of kindness from him,
+no matter how unimportant it might be, always claimed
+affectionate acknowledgment in the days when he was living with
+his wife. In another moment he had dismissed that remembrance,
+and could trust himself to return to Sydney.
+
+"If you find that Sandyseal confirms your first impression," he
+said, "let me know it in time, so that I may make arrangements
+for a longer stay. I have only taken the rooms here for a
+fortnight."
+
+"Thank you, Herbert; I think a fortnight will be long enough."
+
+"Long enough for you?" he asked.
+
+Her morbid sensitiveness mistook him again; she fancied there was
+an undernote of irony in his tone.
+
+"Long enough for both of us," she replied.
+
+He drew a chair to her side. "Do you take it for granted," he
+said, smiling, "that I shall get tired of the place first?"
+
+She shrank, poor creature, even from his smile. There was, as she
+thought, something contemptuous in the good-humor of it.
+
+"We have been to many places," she reminded him, "and we have got
+tired of them together."
+
+"Is that my fault?"
+
+"I didn't say it was."
+
+He got up and approached the bell. "I think the journey has a
+little over-tired you," he resumed. "Would you like to go to your
+room?"
+
+"I will go to my room, if you wish it."
+
+He waited a little, and answered her as quietly as ever. "What I
+really wish," he said, "is that we had consulted a doctor while
+we were in London. You seem to be very easily irritated of late.
+I observe a change in you, which I willingly attribute to the
+state of your health--"
+
+She interrupted him. "What change do you mean?"
+
+"It's quite possible I may be mistaken, Sydney. But I have more
+than once, as I think, seen something in your manner which
+suggests that you distrust me."
+
+"I distrust the evil life we are leading," she burst out, "and I
+see the end of it coming. Oh, I don't blame you! You are kind and
+considerate, you do your best to hide it; but you have lived long
+enough with me to regret the woman whom you have lost. You begin
+to feel the sacrifice you have made--and no wonder. Say the word,
+Herbert, and I release you."
+
+"I will never say the word!"
+
+She hesitated--first inclined, then afraid, to believe him. "I
+have grace enough left in me," she went on, "to feel the
+bitterest repentance for the wrong that I have done to Mrs.
+Linley. When it ends, as it must end, in our parting, will you
+ask your wife--?"
+
+Even his patience began to fail him; he refused--firmly, not
+angrily--to hear more. "She is no longer my wife," he said.
+
+Sydney's bitterness and Sydney's penitence were mingled, as
+opposite emotions only _can_ be mingled in a woman's breast.
+"Will you ask your wife to forgive you?" she persisted.
+
+"After we have been divorced at her petition?" He pointed to the
+window as he said it. "Look at the sea. If I was drowning out
+yonder, I might as well ask the sea to forgive me."
+
+He produced no effect on her. She ignored the Divorce; her
+passionate remorse asserted itself as obstinately as ever. "Mrs.
+Linley is a good woman," she insisted; "Mrs. Linley is a
+Christian woman."
+
+"I have lost all claim on her--even the claim to remember her
+virtues," he answered, sternly. "No more of it, Sydney! I am
+sorry I have disappointed you; I am sorry if you are weary of
+me."
+
+At those last words her manner changed. "Wound me as cruelly as
+you please," she said, humbly. "I will try to bear it."
+
+"I wouldn't wound you for the world! Why do you persist in
+distressing me? Why do you feel suspicion of me which I have not
+deserved?" He stopped, and held out his hand. "Don't let us
+quarrel, Sydney. Which will you do? Keep your bad opinion of me,
+or give me a fair trial?"
+
+She loved him dearly; she was so young--and the young are so
+ready to hope! Still, she struggled against herself. "Herbert! is
+it your pity for me that is speaking now?"
+
+He left her in despair. "It's useless!" he said, sadly. "Nothing
+will conquer your inveterate distrust."
+
+She followed him. With a faint cry of entreaty she made him turn
+to her, and held him in a trembling embrace, and rested her head
+on his bosom. "Forgive me--be patient with me--love me." That was
+all she could say.
+
+He attempted to calm her agitation by speaking lightly. "At last,
+Sydney, we are friends again!" he said.
+
+Friends? All the woman in her recoiled from that insufficient
+word. "Are we Lovers?" she whispered.
+
+"Yes!"
+
+With that assurance her anxious heart was content. She smiled;
+she looked out at the sea with a new appreciation of the view.
+"The air of this place will do me good now," she said. "Are my
+eyes red, Herbert? Let me go and bathe them, and make myself fit
+to be seen."
+
+She rang the bell. The chambermaid answered it, ready to show the
+other rooms. She turned round at the door.
+
+"Let's try to make our sitting-room look like home," she
+suggested. "How dismal, how dreadfully like a thing that doesn't
+belong to us, that empty table looks! Put some of your books and
+my keepsakes on it, while I am away. I'll bring my work with me
+when I come back."
+
+He had left his travelers' bag on a chair, when he first came in.
+Now that he was alone, and under no restraint, he sighed as he
+unlocked the bag. "Home?" he repeated; "we have no home. Poor
+girl! poor unhappy girl! Let me help her to deceive herself."
+
+He opened the bag. The little fragile presents, which she called
+her "keepsakes," had been placed by her own hands in the upper
+part of the bag, so that the books should not weigh on them, and
+had been carefully protected by wrappings of cotton wool. Taking
+them out, one by one, Herbert found a delicate china candlestick
+(intended to hold a wax taper) broken into two pieces, in spite
+of the care that had been taken to preserve it. Of no great value
+in itself, old associations made the candlestick precious to
+Sydney. It had been broken at the stem and could be easily mended
+so as to keep the accident concealed. Consulting the waiter,
+Herbert discovered that the fracture could be repaired at the
+nearest town, and that the place would be within reach when he
+went out for a walk. In fear of another disaster, if he put it
+back in the bag, he opened a drawer in the table, and laid the
+two fragments carefully inside, at the further end. In doing
+this, his hand touched something that had been already placed in
+the drawer. He drew it out, and found that it was a book--the
+same book that Mrs. Presty (surely the evil genius of the family
+again!) had hidden from Randal's notice, and had forgotten when
+she left the hotel.
+
+
+Herbert instantly recognized the gilding on the cover, imitated
+from a design invented by himself. He remembered the inscription,
+and yet he read it again:
+
+"To dear Catherine, from Herbert, on the anniversary of our
+marriage."
+
+The book dropped from his hand on the table, as if it had been a
+new discovery, torturing him with a new pain.
+
+His wife (he persisted in thinking of her as his wife) must have
+occupied the room--might perhaps have been the person whom he had
+succeeded, as a guest at the hotel. Did she still value his
+present to her, in remembrance of old times? No! She valued it so
+little that she had evidently forgotten it. Perhaps her maid
+might have included it among the small articles of luggage when
+they left home, or dear little Kitty might have put it into one
+of her mother's trunks. In any case, there it was now, abandoned
+in the drawer of a table at a hotel.
+
+"Oh," he thought bitterly, "if I could only feel as coldly toward
+Catherine as she feels toward me!" His resolution had resisted
+much; but this final trial of his self-control was more than he
+could sustain. He dropped into a chair--his pride of manhood
+recoiled from the contemptible weakness of crying--he tried to
+remember that she had divorced him, and taken his child from him.
+In vain! in vain! He burst into tears.
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVII.
+
+
+Mrs. Norman.
+
+
+With a heart lightened by reconciliation (not the first
+reconciliation unhappily), with hopes revived, and sweet content
+restored, Sydney's serenity of mind was not quite unruffled. Her
+thoughts were not dwelling on the evil life which she had
+honestly deplored, or on the wronged wife to whom she had been
+eager to make atonement. Where is the woman whose sorrows are not
+thrown into the shade by the bright renewal of love? The one
+anxiety that troubled Sydney was caused by remembrance of the
+letter which she had sent to the convent at Sandyseal.
+
+As her better mind now viewed it, she had doubly injured
+Herbert--first in distrusting him; then by appealing from him to
+the compassion of strangers.
+
+If the reply for which she had rashly asked was waiting for her
+at that moment--if the mercy of the Mother Superior was ready to
+comfort and guide her--what return could she make? how could she
+excuse herself from accepting what was offered in kindly reply to
+her own petition? She had placed herself, for all she knew to the
+contrary, between two alternatives of ingratitude equally
+unendurable, equally degrading. To feel this was to feel the
+suspense which, to persons of excitable temperament, is of all
+trials the hardest to bear. The chambermaid was still in her
+room--Sydney asked if the post-office was near to the hotel.
+
+The woman smiled. "Everything is near us, ma'am, in this little
+place. Can we send to the post-office for you?"
+
+Sydney wrote her initials. "Ask, if you please, for a letter
+addressed in that way." She handed the memorandum to the
+chambermaid. "Corresponding with her lover under her husband's
+nose!" That was how the chambermaid explained it below stairs,
+when the porter remarked that initials looked mysterious.
+
+The Mother Superior had replied. Sydney trembled as she opened
+the letter. It began kindly.
+
+"I believe you, my child, and I am anxious to help you. But I
+cannot correspond with an unknown person. If you decide to reveal
+yourself, it is only right to add that I have shown your letter
+to the Reverend Father who, in temporal as in spiritual things,
+is our counselor and guide. To him I must refer you, in the first
+instance. His wisdom will decide the serious question of
+receiving you into our Holy Church, and will discover, in due
+time, if you have a true vocation to a religious life. With the
+Father's sanction, you may be sure of my affectionate desire to
+serve you."
+
+Sydney put the letter back in the envelope, feeling gratefully
+toward the Mother Superior, but determined by the conditions
+imposed on her to make no further advance toward the Benedictine
+community.
+
+Even if her motive in writing to the convent had remained
+unchallenged, the allusions to the priest would still have
+decided her on taking this step. The bare idea of opening her
+inmost heart, and telling her saddest secrets, to a man, and that
+man a stranger, was too repellent to be entertained for a moment.
+In a few lines of reply, gratefully and respectfully written, she
+thanked the Mother Superior, and withdrew from the
+correspondence.
+
+The letter having been closed, and posted in the hotel box, she
+returned to the sitting-room free from the one doubt that had
+troubled her; eager to show Herbert how truly she believed in
+him, how hopefully she looked to the future.
+
+With a happy smile on her lips she opened the door. She was on
+the point of asking him playfully if he had felt surprised at her
+long absence--when the sight that met her eyes turned her cold
+with terror in an instant.
+
+His arms were stretched out on the table; his head was laid on
+them, despair confessed itself in his attitude; grief spoke in
+the deep sobbing breaths that shook him. Love and compassion
+restored Sydney's courage; she advanced to raise him in her
+arms--and stopped once more. The book on the table caught her
+eye. He was still unconscious of her presence; she ventured to
+open it. She read the inscription--looked at him--looked back at
+the writing--and knew the truth at last.
+
+The rigor of the torture that she suffered paralyzed all outward
+expression of pain. Quietly she put the book back on the table.
+Quietly she touched him, and called him by his name.
+
+He started and looked up; he made an attempt to speak to her in
+his customary tone. "I didn't hear you come in," he said.
+
+She pointed to the book, without the slightest change in her face
+or her manner.
+
+"I have read the inscription to your wife," she answered; "I have
+seen you while you thought you were alone; the mercy which has so
+long kept the truth from me is mercy wasted now. Your bonds are
+broken, Herbert. You are a free man."
+
+He affected not to have understood her. She let him try to
+persuade her of it, and made no reply. He declared, honestly
+declared, that what she had said distressed him. She listened in
+submissive silence. He took her hand, and kissed it. She let him
+kiss it, and let him drop it at her side. She frightened him; he
+began to fear for her reason. There was silence--long, horrid,
+hopeless silence.
+
+She had left the door of the room open. One of the servants of
+the hotel appeared outside in the passage. He spoke to some
+person behind him. "Perhaps the book has been left in here," he
+suggested. A gentle voice answered: "I hope the lady and
+gentleman will excuse me, if I ask leave to look for my book."
+She stepped into the room to make her apologies.
+
+Herbert Linley and Sydney Westerfield looked at the woman whom
+they had outraged. The woman whom they had outraged paused, and
+looked back at them.
+
+The hotel servant was surprised at their not speaking to each
+other. He was a stupid man; he thought the gentlefolks were
+strangely unlike gentlefolks in general; they seemed not to know
+what to say. Herbert happened to be standing nearest to him; he
+felt that it would be civil to the gentleman to offer a word of
+explanation.
+
+"The lady had these rooms, sir. She has come back from the
+station to look for a book that has been left behind."
+
+Herbert signed to him to go. As the man turned to obey, he drew
+back. Sydney had moved to the door before him, to leave the room.
+Herbert refused to permit it. "Stay here," he said to her gently;
+"this room is yours."
+
+Sydney hesitated. Herbert addressed her again. He pointed to his
+divorced wife. "You see how that lady is looking at you," he
+said; "I beg that you will not submit to insult from anybody."
+
+Sydney obeyed him: she returned to the room.
+
+Catherine's voice was heard for the first time. She addressed
+herself to Sydney with a quiet dignity--far removed from anger,
+further removed still from contempt.
+
+"You were about to leave the room," she said. "I notice--as an
+act of justice to _you_--that my presence arouses some sense of
+shame."
+
+Herbert turned to Sydney; trying to recover herself, she stood
+near the table. "Give me the book," he said; "the sooner this
+comes to an end the better for her, the better for us." Sydney
+gave him the book. With a visible effort, he matched Catherine's
+self-control; after all, she had remembered his gift! He offered
+the book to her.
+
+She still kept her eyes fixed on Sydney--still spoke to Sydney.
+
+"Tell him," she said, "that I refuse to receive the book."
+
+Sydney attempted to obey. At the first words she uttered, Herbert
+checked her once more.
+
+"I have begged you already not to submit to insult." He turned to
+Catherine. "The book is yours, madam. Why do you refuse to take
+it?"
+
+She looked at him for the first time. A proud sense of wrong
+flashed at him its keenly felt indignation in her first glance.
+"Your hands and her hands have touched it," she answered. "I
+leave it to _you_ and to _her_."
+
+Those words stung him. "Contempt," he said, "is bitter indeed on
+your lips."
+
+"Do you presume to resent my contempt?"
+
+"I forbid you to insult Miss Westerfield." With that reply, he
+turned to Sydney. "You shall not suffer while I can prevent it,"
+he said tenderly, and approached to put his arm round her. She
+looked at Catherine, and drew back from his embrace, gently
+repelling him by a gesture.
+
+Catherine felt and respected the true delicacy, the true
+penitence, expressed in that action. She advanced to Sydney.
+"Miss Westerfield," she said, "I will take the book--from you."
+
+Sydney gave back the book without a word; in her position silence
+was the truest gratitude. Quietly and firmly Catherine removed
+the blank leaf on which Herbert had written, and laid it before
+him on the table. "I return your inscription. It means nothing
+now." Those words were steadily pronounced; not the slightest
+appearance of temper accompanied them. She moved slowly to the
+door and looked back at Sydney. "Make some allowance for what I
+have suffered," she said gently. "If I have wounded you, I regret
+it." The faint sound of her dress on the carpet was heard in the
+perfect stillness, and lost again. They saw her no more.
+
+Herbert approached Sydney. It was a moment when he was bound to
+assure her of his sympathy. He felt for her. In his inmost heart
+he felt for her. As he drew nearer, he saw tears in her eyes; but
+they seemed to have risen without her knowledge. Hardly conscious
+of his presence, she stood before him--lost in thought.
+
+He endeavored to rouse her. "Did I protect you from insult?" he
+asked.
+
+She said absently: "Yes!"
+
+"Will you do as I do, dear? Will you try to forget?"
+
+She said: "I will try to atone," and moved toward the door of her
+room. The reply surprised him; but it was no time then to ask for
+an explanation.
+
+"Would you like to lie down, Sydney, and rest?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She took his arm. He led her to the door of her room. "Is there
+anything else I can do for you?" he asked.
+
+"Nothing, thank you."
+
+She closed the door--and abruptly opened it again. "One thing
+more," she said. "Kiss me."
+
+He kissed her tenderly. Returning to the sitting-room, he looked
+back across the passage. Her door was shut.
+
+His head was heavy; his mind felt confused. He threw himself on
+the sofa--utterly exhausted by the ordeal through which he had
+passed. In grief, in fear, in pain, the time still comes when
+Nature claims her rights. The wretched worn-out man fell into a
+restless sleep. He was awakened by the waiter, laying the cloth
+for dinner. "It's just ready, sir," the servant announced; "shall
+I knock at the lady's door?"
+
+Herbert got up and went to her room.
+
+He entered softly, fearing to disturb her if she too had slept.
+No sign of her was to be seen. She had evidently not rested on
+her bed. A morsel of paper lay on the smooth coverlet. There was
+only a line written on it: "You may yet be happy--and it may
+perhaps be my doing."
+
+He stood, looking at that last line of her writing, in the empty
+room. His despair and his submission spoke in the only words that
+escaped him:
+
+"I have deserved it!"
+
+
+
+
+FIFTH BOOK.
+
+
+Chapter XXXVIII.
+
+
+
+Hear the Lawyer.
+
+
+"Mr. Herbert Linley, I ask permission to reply to your inquiries
+in writing, because it is quite likely that some of the opinions
+you will find here might offend you if I expressed them
+personally. I can relieve your anxiety on the subject of Miss
+Sydney Westerfield. But I must be allowed to do so in my own
+way--without any other restraints than those which I think it
+becoming to an honorable man to impose on himself.
+
+"You are quite right in supposing that Miss Westerfield had heard
+me spoken of at Mount Morven, as the agent and legal adviser of
+the lady who was formerly your wife. What purpose led her to
+apply to me, under these circumstances, you will presently
+discover. As to the means by which she found her way to my
+office, I may remind you that any directory would give her the
+necessary information.
+
+"Miss Westerfield's object was to tell me, in the first place,
+that her guilty life with you was at an end. She has left your
+protection--not to return to it. I was sorry to see (though she
+tried to hide it from me) how keenly she felt the parting. You
+have been dearly loved by two sweet women, and they have thrown
+their hearts away on you--as women will.
+
+"Having explained the circumstances so far, Miss Westerfield next
+mentioned the motive which had brought her to my office. She
+asked if I would inform her of Mrs. Norman's address.
+
+"This request, I confess, astonished me.
+
+"To my mind she was, of all persons, the last who ought to
+contemplate communicating in any way with Mrs. Norman. I say this
+to you; but I refrained from saying it to her. What I did venture
+to do was to ask for her reasons. She answered that they were
+reasons which would embarrass her if she communicated them to a
+stranger.
+
+"After this reply, I declined to give her the information she
+wanted.
+
+"Not unprepared, as it appeared to me, for my refusal, she asked
+next if I was willing to tell her where she might find your
+brother, Mr. Randal Linley. In this case I was glad to comply
+with her request. She could address herself to no person worthier
+to advise her than your brother. In giving her his address in
+London, I told her that he was absent on a visit to some friends,
+and that he was expected to return in a week's time.
+
+"She thanked me, and rose to go.
+
+"I confess I was interested in her. Perhaps I thought of the time
+when she might have been as dear to her father as my own
+daughters are to me. I asked if her parents were living: they
+were dead. My next question was: 'Have you any friends in
+London?' She answered: 'I have no friends.' It was said with a
+resignation so very sad in so young a creature that I was really
+distressed. I ran the risk of offending her--and asked if she
+felt any embarrassment in respect of money. She said: 'I have
+some small savings from my salary when I was a governess.' The
+change in her tone told me that she was alluding to the time of
+her residence at Mount Morven. It was impossible to look at this
+friendless girl, and not feel some anxiety about the lodging
+which she might have chosen in such a place as London. She had
+fortunately come to me from the railway, and had not thought yet
+of where she was to live. At last I was able to be of some use to
+her. My senior clerk took care of Miss Westerfield, and left her
+among respectable people, in whose house she could live cheaply
+and safely. Where that house is, I refuse (for her sake) to tell
+you. She shall not be disturbed.
+
+"After a week had passed I received a visit from my good friend,
+Randal Linley.
+
+"He had on that day seen Miss Westerfield. She had said to him
+what she had said to me, and had repeated the request which I
+thought it unwise to grant; owning to your brother, however, the
+motives which she had refused to confide to me. He was so
+strongly impressed by the sacrifice of herself which this
+penitent woman had made, that he was at first disposed to trust
+her with Mrs. Norman's address.
+
+"Reflection, however, convinced him that her motives, pure and
+disinterested as they undoubtedly were, did not justify him in
+letting her expose herself to the consequences which might follow
+the proposed interview. All that he engaged to do was to repeat
+to Mrs. Norman what Miss Westerfield had said, and to inform the
+young lady of the result.
+
+"In the intervals of business, I had felt some uneasiness when I
+thought of Miss Westerfield's prospects. Your good brother at
+once set all anxiety on this subject at rest.
+
+"He proposed to place Miss Westerfield under the care of an old
+and dear friend of her late father--Captain Bennydeck. Her
+voluntary separation from you offered to your brother, and to the
+Captain, the opportunity for which they had both been waiting.
+Captain Bennydeck was then cruising at sea in his yacht.
+Immediately on his return, Miss Westerfield's inclination would
+be consulted, and she would no doubt eagerly embrace the
+opportunity of being introduced to her father's friend.
+
+"I have now communicated all that I know, in reply to the
+questions which you have addressed to me. Let me earnestly advise
+you to make the one reparation to this poor girl which is in your
+power. Resign yourself to a separation which is not only for her
+good, but for yours.--SAMUEL SARRAZIN."
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIX.
+
+
+Listen to Reason.
+
+
+Not having heard from Captain Bennydeck for some little time,
+Randal thought it desirable in Sydney's interests to make
+inquiries at his club. Nothing was known of the Captain's
+movements there. On the chance of getting the information that he
+wanted, Randal wrote to the hotel at Sandyseal.
+
+The landlord's reply a little surprised him.
+
+Some days since, the yacht had again appeared in the bay. Captain
+Bennydeck had landed, to all appearance in fairly good health;
+and had left by an early train for London. The sailing-master
+announced that he had orders to take the vessel back to her
+port--with no other explanation than that the cruise was over.
+This alternative in the Captain's plans (terminating the voyage a
+month earlier than his arrangements had contemplated) puzzled
+Randal. He called at his friend's private residence, only to hear
+from the servants that they had seen nothing of their master.
+Randal waited a while in London, on the chance that Bennydeck
+might pay him a visit.
+
+During this interval his patience was rewarded in an unexpected
+manner. He discovered the Captain's address by means of a letter
+from Catherine, dated "Buck's Hotel, Sydenham." Having gently
+reproached him for not writing to her or calling on her, she
+invited him to dinner at the hotel. Her letter concluded in these
+words: "You will only meet one person besides ourselves--your
+friend, and (since we last met) our friend too. Captain Bennydeck
+has got tired of the sea. He is staying at this hotel, to try the
+air of Sydenham, and he finds that it agrees with him."
+
+These lines set Randal thinking seriously.
+
+To represent Bennydeck as being "tired of the sea," and as being
+willing to try, in place of the breezy Channel, the air of a
+suburb of London, was to make excuses too perfectly futile and
+absurd to deceive any one who knew the Captain. In spite of the
+appearance of innocence which pervaded Catherine's letter, the
+true motive for breaking off his cruise might be found, as Randal
+concluded, in Catherine herself. Her residence at the sea-side,
+helped by the lapse of time, had restored to her personal
+attractions almost all they had lost under the deteriorating
+influences of care and grief; and her change of name must have
+protected her from a discovery of the Divorce which would have
+shocked a man so sincerely religious as Bennydeck. Had her beauty
+fascinated him? Was she aware of the interest that he felt in
+her? and was it secretly understood and returned? Randal wrote
+to accept the invitation; determining to present himself before
+the appointed hour, and to question Catherine privately, without
+giving her the advantage over him of preparing herself for the
+interview.
+
+In the short time that passed before the day of the dinner,
+distressing circumstances strengthened his resolution. After
+months of separation, he received a visit from Herbert.
+
+Was this man--haggard, pallid, shabby, looking at him piteously
+with bloodshot eyes--the handsome, pleasant, prosperous brother
+whom he remembered? Randal was so grieved, that he was for a
+moment unable to utter a word. He could only point to a seat.
+Herbert dropped into the chair as if he was reduced to the last
+extremity of fatigue. And yet he spoke roughly; he looked like an
+angry man brought to bay.
+
+"I seem to frighten you," he said.
+
+"You distress me, Herbert, more than words can say."
+
+"Give me a glass of wine. I've been walking--I don't know where.
+A long distance; I'm dead beat."
+
+He drank the wine greedily. Whatever reviving effect it might
+otherwise have produced on him, it made no change in the
+threatening gloom of his manner. In a man morally weak, calamity
+(suffered without resisting power) breaks its way through the
+surface which exhibits a gentleman, and shows the naked nature
+which claims kindred with our ancestor the savage.
+
+"Do you feel better, Herbert?"
+
+He put down the empty glass, taking no notice of his brother's
+question. "Randal," he said, "you know where Sydney is."
+
+Randal admitted it.
+
+"Give me her address. My mind's in such a state I can't remember
+it; write it down."
+
+"No, Herbert."
+
+"You won't write it? and you won't give it?"
+
+"I will do neither the one nor the other. Go back to your chair;
+fierce looks and clinched fists don't frighten me. Miss
+Westerfield is quite right in separating herself from you. And
+you are quite wrong in wishing to go back to her. There are my
+reasons. Try to understand them. And, once again, sit down."
+
+He spoke sternly--with his heart aching for his brother all the
+time. He was right. The one way is the positive way, when a man
+who suffers trouble is degraded by it.
+
+The poor wretch sank under Randal's firm voice and steady eye.
+
+"Don't be hard on me," he said. "I think a man in my situation is
+to be pitied--especially by his brother. I'm not like you; I'm
+not accustomed to live alone. I've been accustomed to having a
+kind woman to talk to me, and take care of me. You don't know
+what it is to be used to seeing a pretty creature, always nicely
+dressed, always about the room--thinking so much of you, and so
+little of herself--and then to be left alone as I am left, out in
+the dark. I haven't got my wife; she has thrown me over, and
+taken my child away from me. And, now, Sydney's taken away from
+me next. I'm alone. Do you hear that? Alone! Take the poker there
+out of the fireplace. Give me back Sydney, or knock out my
+brains. I haven't courage enough to do it for myself. Oh, why did
+I engage that governess! I was so happy, Randal, with Catherine
+and little Kitty."
+
+He laid his head wearily on the back of his chair. Randal offered
+him more wine; he refused it.
+
+"I'm afraid," he said. "Wine maddens me if I take too much of it.
+You have heard of men forgetting their sorrows in drink. I tried
+it yesterday; it set my brains on fire; I'm feeling that glass I
+took just now. No! I'm not faint. It eases my head when I rest
+like this. Shake hands, Randal; we have never had any unfriendly
+words; we mustn't begin now. There's something perverse about me.
+I didn't know how fond I was of Sydney till I lost her; I didn't
+know how fond I was of my wife till I left her." He paused, and
+put his hand to his fevered head. Was his mind wandering into
+some other train of thought? He astonished his brother by a new
+entreaty--the last imaginable entreaty that Randal expected to
+hear. "Dear old fellow, I want you to do me a favor. Tell me
+where my wife is living now?"
+
+"Surely," Randal answered, "you know that she is no longer your
+wife?"
+
+"Never mind that! I have something to say to her."
+
+"You can't do it."
+
+"Can _you_ do it? Will you give her a message?"
+
+"Let me hear what it is first."
+
+Herbert lifted his head, and laid his hand earnestly on his
+brother's arm. When he said his next words he was almost like his
+old self again.
+
+"Say that I'm lonely, say that I'm dying for want of a little
+comfort--ask her to let me see Kitty."
+
+His tone touched Randal to the quick. "I feel for you, Herbert,"
+he said, warmly. "She shall have your message; all that I can do
+to persuade her shall be done."
+
+"As soon as possible?"
+
+"Yes--as soon as possible."
+
+"And you won't forget? No, no; of course you won't forget." He
+tried to rise, and fell back again into his chair. "Let me rest a
+little," he pleaded, "if I'm not in the way. I'm not fit company
+for you, I know; I'll go when you tell me."
+
+Randal refused to let him go at all. "You will stay here with me;
+and if I happen to be away, there will be somebody in the house,
+who is almost as fond of you as I am." He mentioned the name of
+one of the old servants at Mount Morven, who had attached himself
+to Randal after the breakup of the family. "And now rest," he
+said, "and let me put this cushion under your head."
+
+Herbert answered: "It's like being at home again"--and composed
+himself to rest.
+
+
+
+Chapter XL.
+
+
+Keep Your Temper.
+
+
+On the next day but one, Randal arranged his departure for
+Sydenham, so as to arrive at the hotel an hour before the time
+appointed for the dinner. His prospects of success, in pleading
+for a favorable reception of his brother's message, were so
+uncertain that he refrained--in fear of raising hopes which he
+might not be able to justify--from taking Herbert into his
+confidence. No one knew on what errand he was bent, when he left
+the house. As he took his place in the carriage, the newspaper
+boy appeared at the window as usual. The new number of a popular
+weekly journal had that day been published. Randal bought it.
+
+After reading one or two of the political articles, he arrived at
+the columns specially devoted to "Fashionable Intelligence."
+Caring nothing for that sort of news, he was turning over the
+pages in search of the literary and dramatic articles, when a
+name not unfamiliar to him caught his eye. He read the paragraph
+in which it appeared.
+
+
+"The charming widow, Mrs. Norman, is, we hear, among the
+distinguished guests staying at Buck's Hotel. It is whispered
+that the lady is to be shortly united to a retired naval officer
+of Arctic fame; now better known, perhaps, as one of our leading
+philanthropists."
+
+The allusion to Bennydeck was too plain to be mistaken. Randal
+looked again at the first words in the paragraph. "The charming
+widow!" Was it possible that this last word referred to
+Catherine? To suppose her capable of assuming to be a widow,
+and--if the child asked questions--of telling Kitty that her
+father was dead, was, in Randal's estimation, to wrong her
+cruelly. With his own suspicions steadily contradicting him, he
+arrived at the hotel, obstinately believing that "the charming
+widow" would prove to be a stranger.
+
+A first disappointment was in store for him when he entered the
+house. Mrs. Norman and her little daughter were out driving with
+a friend, and were expected to return in good time for dinner.
+Mrs. Presty was at home; she was reported to be in the garden of
+the hotel.
+
+Randal found her comfortably established in a summerhouse, with
+her knitting in her hands, and a newspaper on her lap. She
+advanced to meet him, all smiles and amiability. "How nice of you
+to come so soon!" she began. Her keen penetration discovered
+something in his face which checked the gayety of her welcome.
+"You don't mean to say that you are going to spoil our pleasant
+little dinner by bringing bad news!" she added, looking at him
+suspiciously.
+
+"It depends on you to decide that," Randal replied.
+
+"How very complimentary to a poor useless old woman! Don't be
+mysterious, my dear. I don't belong to the generation which
+raises storms in tea-cups, and calls skirmishes with savages
+battles. Out with it!"
+
+Randal handed his paper to her, open at the right place. "There
+is my news," he said.
+
+Mrs. Presty looked at the paragraph, and handed _her_ newspaper
+to Randal.
+
+"I am indeed sorry to spoil your dramatic effect," she said. "But
+you ought to have known that we are only half an hour behind you,
+at Sydenham, in the matter of news. The report is premature, my
+good friend. But if these newspaper people waited to find out
+whether a report is true or false, how much gossip would society
+get in its favorite newspapers? Besides, if it isn't true now, it
+will be true next week. The author only says, 'It's whispered.'
+How delicate of him! What a perfect gentleman!"
+
+"Am I really to understand, Mrs. Presty, that Catherine--"
+
+"You are to understand that Catherine is a widow. I say it with
+pride, a widow of my making!"
+
+"If this is one of your jokes, ma'am--"
+
+"Nothing of the sort, sir."
+
+"Are you aware, Mrs. Presty, that my brother--"
+
+"Oh, don't talk of your brother! He's an obstacle in our way, and
+we have been compelled to get rid of him."
+
+Randal drew back a step. Mrs. Presty's audacity was something
+more than he could understand. "Is this woman mad?" he said to
+himself.
+
+"Sit down," said Mrs. Presty. "If you are determined to make a
+serious business of it--if you insist on my justifying
+myself--you are to be pitied for not possessing a sense of humor,
+but you shall have your own way. I am put on my defense. Very
+well. You shall hear how my divorced daughter and my poor little
+grandchild were treated at Sandyseal, after you left us."
+
+Having related the circumstances, she suggested that Randal
+should put himself in Catherine's place, before he ventured on
+expressing an opinion. "Would you have exposed yourself to be
+humiliated again in the same way?" she asked. "And would you have
+seen your child made to suffer as well as yourself?"
+
+"I should have kept in retirement for the future," he answered,
+"and not have trusted my child and myself among strangers in
+hotels."
+
+"Ah, indeed? And you would have condemned your poor little
+daughter to solitude? You would have seen her pining for the
+company of other children, and would have had no mercy on her? I
+wonder what you would have done when Captain Bennydeck paid us a
+visit at the seaside? He was introduced to Mrs. Norman, and to
+Mrs. Norman's little girl, and we were all charmed with him. When
+he and I happened to be left together he naturally wondered,
+after having seen the beautiful wife, where the lucky husband
+might be. If he had asked you about Mr. Norman, how would you
+have answered him?"
+
+"I should have told the truth."
+
+"You would have said there was no Mr. Norman?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Exactly what I did! And the Captain of course concluded (after
+having been introduced to Kitty) that Mrs. Norman was a widow. If
+I had set him right, what would have become of my daughter's
+reputation? If I had told the truth at this hotel, when everybody
+wanted to know what Mrs. Norman, that handsome lady, was--what
+would the consequences have been to Catherine and her little
+girl? No! no! I have made the best of a miserable situation; I
+have consulted the tranquillity of a cruelly injured woman and an
+innocent child--with this inevitable result; I have been obliged
+to treat your brother like a character in a novel. I have
+ship-wrecked Herbert as the shortest way of answering
+inconvenient questions. Vessel found bottom upward in the middle
+of the Atlantic, and everybody on board drowned, of course. Worse
+stories have been printed; I do assure you, worse stories have
+been printed."
+
+Randal decided on leaving her. "Have you done all this with
+Catherine's consent?" he asked as he got up from his chair.
+
+"Catherine submits to circumstances, like a sensible woman."
+
+"Does she submit to your telling Kitty that her father is dead?"
+
+For the first time Mrs. Presty became serious.
+
+"Wait a minute," she answered. "Before I consented to answer the
+child's inquiries, I came to an understanding with her mother. I
+said, 'Will you let Kitty see her father again?'"
+
+The very question which Randal had promised to ask in his
+brother's interests! "And how did Catherine answer you?" he
+inquired.
+
+"Honestly. She said: 'I daren't!' After that, I had her mother's
+authority for telling Kitty that she would never see her father
+again. She asked directly if her father was dead--"
+
+"That will do, Mrs. Presty. Your defense is thoroughly worthy of
+your conduct in all other respects."
+
+"Say thoroughly worthy of the course forced upon me and my
+daughter by your brother's infamous conduct--and you will be
+nearer the mark!"
+
+Randal passed this over without notice. "Be so good," he said,
+"as to tell Catherine that I try to make every possible allowance
+for her, but that I cannot consent to sit at her dinner-table,
+and that I dare not face my poor little niece, after what I have
+heard."
+
+Mrs. Presty recovered all her audacity. "A very wise decision,"
+she remarked. "Your sour face would spoil the best dinner that
+ever was put on the table. Have you any message for Captain
+Bennydeck?"
+
+Randal asked if his friend was then at the hotel.
+
+Mrs. Presty smiled significantly. "Not at the hotel, just now."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Where he is every day, about this time--out driving with
+Catherine and Kitty."
+
+It was a relief to Randal--in the present state of Catherine's
+relations toward Bennydeck--to return to London without having
+seen his friend.
+
+He took leave of Mrs. Presty with the formality due to a
+stranger--he merely bowed. That incorrigible old woman treated
+him with affectionate familiarity in return.
+
+"Good-by, dear Randal. One moment before you go! Will it be of
+any use if we invite you to the marriage?"
+
+Arrived at the station, Randal found that he must wait for the
+train. While he was walking up and down the platform with a mind
+doubly distressed by anxiety about his brother and anxiety about
+Sydney, the train from London came in. He stood, looking absently
+at the passengers leaving the carriage on the opposite side of
+the platform. Suddenly, a voice that he knew was audible, asking
+the way to Buck's Hotel. He crossed the line in an instant, and
+found himself face to face with Herbert.
+
+
+
+Chapter XLI.
+
+
+Make the Best of It.
+
+
+For a moment the two men looked at each other without speaking.
+Herbert's wondering eyes accurately reflected his brother's
+astonishment.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he asked. Suspicion overclouded his
+face as he put the question. "You have been to the hotel?" he
+burst out; "you have seen Catherine?"
+
+Randal could deny that he had seen Catherine, with perfect
+truth--and did deny it in the plainest terms. Herbert was
+satisfied. "In all my remembrance of you," he said, "you have
+never told me a lie. We have both seen the same newspaper, of
+course--and you have been the first to clear the thing up. That's
+it, isn't it?"
+
+"I wonder who this other Mrs. Norman is; did you find out?"
+
+"No."
+
+"She's not Catherine, at any rate; I, for one, shall go home with
+a lighter heart." He took his brother's arm, to return to the
+other platform. "Do you know, Randal, I was almost afraid that
+Catherine was the woman. The devil take the thing, and the people
+who write in it!"
+
+He snatched a newspaper out of his pocket as he spoke--tore it in
+half--and threw it away. "Malcolm meant well, poor fellow," he
+said, referring to the old servant, "but he made a miserable man
+of me for all that."
+
+Not satisfied with gossip in private, the greedy public appetite
+devours gossip in print, and wants more of it than any one editor
+can supply. Randal picked up the torn newspaper. It was not the
+newspaper which he had bought at the station. Herbert had been
+reading a rival journal, devoted to the interests of Society--in
+which the report of Mrs. Norman's marriage was repeated, with
+this difference, that it boldly alluded to Captain Bennydeck by
+name. "Did Malcolm give you this?" Randal asked.
+
+"Yes; he and the servant next door subscribe to take it in; and
+Malcolm thought it might amuse me. It drove me out of the house
+and into the railway. If it had driven me out of mind, I
+shouldn't have been surprised."
+
+"Gently, Herbert! Supposing the report had been true--?"
+
+"After what you have told me, why should I suppose anything of
+the sort?"
+
+"Don't be angry; and do pray remember that the Divorce allows you
+and Catherine to marry again, if you like."
+
+Herbert became more unreasonable than ever. "If Catherine does
+think of marrying again," he said, "the man will have to reckon
+first with me. But that is not the point. You seem to have
+forgotten that the woman at Buck's Hotel is described as a Widow.
+The bare doubt that my divorced wife might be the woman was bad
+enough--but what I wanted to find out was how she had passed off
+her false pretense on our child. _That_ was what maddened me! No
+more of it now. Have you seen Catherine lately?"
+
+"Not lately."
+
+"I suppose she is as handsome as ever. When will you ask her to
+let me see Kitty?"
+
+"Leave that to me," was the one reply which Randal could venture
+to make at the moment.
+
+The serious embarrassments that surrounded him were thickening
+fast. His natural frank nature urged him to undeceive Herbert. If
+he followed his inclinations, in the near neighborhood of the
+hotel, who could say what disasters might not ensue, in his
+brother's present frame of mind? If he made the disclosure on
+their return to the house, he would be only running the same risk
+of consequences, after an interval of delay; and, if he remained
+silent, the march of events might, at any moment, lead to the
+discovery of what he had concealed. Add to this, that his
+confidence in Catherine had been rudely shaken. Having allowed
+herself to be entrapped into the deception proposed by her
+mother, and having thus far persevered in that deception, were
+the chances in favor of her revealing her true
+position--especially if she was disposed to encourage Bennydeck's
+suit? Randal's loyalty to Catherine hesitated to decide that
+serious question against the woman whom he had known, trusted,
+and admired for so many years. In any event, her second marriage
+would lead to one disastrous result. It would sooner or later
+come to Herbert's ears. In the meantime, after what Mrs. Presty
+had confessed, the cruel falsehood which had checked poor Kitty's
+natural inquiries raised an insuperable obstacle to a meeting
+between father and child.
+
+If Randal shrank from the prospect which thus presented itself to
+him, in his relations with his brother, and if his thoughts
+reverted to Sydney Westerfield, other reasons for apprehension
+found their way into his mind.
+
+He had promised to do his best toward persuading Catherine to
+grant Sydney an interview. To perform that promise appeared to be
+now simply impossible. Under the exasperating influence of a
+disappointment for which she was not prepared, it was hard to say
+what act of imprudence Sydney might not commit. Even the chance
+of successfully confiding her to Bennydeck's protection had lost
+something of its fair promise, since Randal's visit to Sydenham.
+That the Captain would welcome his friend's daughter as
+affectionately as if she had been his own child, was not to be
+doubted for a moment. But that she would receive the same
+unremitting attention, while he was courting Catherine, which
+would have been offered to her under other circumstances, was not
+to be hoped. Be the results, however, what they might, Randal
+could see but one plain course before him now. He decided on
+hastening Sydney's introduction to Bennydeck, and on writing at
+once to prepare the Captain for that event.
+
+Even this apparently simple proceeding required examination in
+its different bearings, before he could begin his letter.
+
+Would he be justified in alluding to the report which associated
+Bennydeck with Catherine? Considerations of delicacy seemed to
+forbid taking this liberty, even with an intimate friend. It was
+for the Captain to confirm what Mrs. Presty had said of him, if
+he thought it desirable to touch on the subject in his reply.
+Besides, looking to Catherine's interest--and not forgetting how
+she had suffered--had Randal any right to regard with other than
+friendly feelings a second marriage, which united her to a man
+morally and intellectually the superior of her first husband?
+What happier future could await her--especially if she justified
+Randal's past experience of all that was candid and truthful in
+her character--than to become his friend's wife?
+
+Written under the modifying influence of these conclusions, his
+letter contained the few words that follow:
+
+"I have news for you which I am sure you will be glad to hear.
+Your old friend's daughter has abandoned her sinful way of life,
+and has made sacrifices which prove the sincerity of her repentance.
+Without entering into particulars which may be mercifully
+dismissed from notice, let me only assure you that I answer for
+Sydney Westerfield as being worthy of the fatherly interest which
+you feel in her. Shall I say that she may expect an early visit
+from you, when I see her to-morrow? I don't doubt that I am free
+already to do this; but it will encourage the poor girl, if I can
+speak with your authority."
+
+He added Sydney's address in a postscript, and dispatched his
+letter that evening.
+
+
+
+On the afternoon of the next day two letters were delivered to
+Randal, bearing the Sydenham postmark.
+
+The first which he happened to take up was addressed to him in
+Mrs. Presty's handwriting. His opinion of this correspondent was
+expressed in prompt action--he threw the letter, unopened, into
+the waste-paper basket.
+
+The next letter was from Bennydeck, written in the kindest terms,
+but containing no allusion to any contemplated change in his
+life. He would not be able (he wrote) to leave Sydenham for a day
+or two. No explanation of the cause of this delay followed. But
+it might, perhaps, be excusable to infer that the marriage had
+not yet been decided on, and that the Captain's proposals were
+still waiting for Catherine's reply.
+
+Randal put the letter in his pocket and went at once to Sydney's
+lodgings.
+
+
+
+Chapter XLII.
+
+
+Try to Excuse Her.
+
+
+The weather had been unusually warm. Of all oppressive summers a
+hot summer in London is the hardest to endure. The little
+exercise that Sydney could take was, as Randal knew, deferred
+until the evening. On asking for her, he was surprised to hear
+that she had gone out.
+
+"Is she walking?" he asked, "on a day such as this?"
+
+No: she was too much overcome by the heat to be able to walk. The
+landlady's boy had been sent to fetch a cab, and he had heard
+Miss Westerfield tell the driver to go to Lincoln's Inn Fields.
+
+The address at once reminded Randal of Mr. Sarrazin. On the
+chance of making a discovery, he went to the lawyer's office. It
+had struck him as being just possible that Sydney might have
+called there for the second time; and, on making inquiry, he
+found that his surmise was correct. Miss Westerfield had called,
+and had gone away again more than an hour since.
+
+Having mentioned this circumstance, good Mr. Sarrazin rather
+abruptly changed the subject.
+
+He began to talk of the weather, and, like everybody else, he
+complained of the heat. Receiving no encouragement so far, he
+selected politics as his next topic. Randal was unapproachably
+indifferent to the state of parties, and the urgent necessity for
+reform. Still bent, as it seemed, on preventing his visitor from
+taking a leading part in the conversation, Mr. Sarrazin tried the
+exercise of hospitality next. He opened his cigar-case, and
+entered eagerly into the merits of his cigars; he proposed a cool
+drink, and described the right method of making it as
+distinguished from the wrong. Randal was not thirsty, and was not
+inclined to smoke. Would the pertinacious lawyer give way at
+last? In appearance, at least, he submitted to defeat. "You want
+something of me, my friend," he said, with a patient smile. "What
+is it?"
+
+"I want to know why Miss Westerfield called on you?"
+
+Randal flattered himself that he had made a prevaricating reply
+simply impossible. Nothing of the sort! Mr. Sarrazin slipped
+through his fingers once more. The unwritten laws of gallantry
+afforded him a refuge now.
+
+"The most inviolate respect," he solemnly declared, "is due to a
+lady's confidence--and, what is more, to a young lady's
+confidence--and, what is more yet, to a pretty young lady's
+confidence. The sex, my dear fellow! Must I recall your
+attention to what is due to the sex?"
+
+This little outbreak of the foreign side of his friend's
+character was no novelty to Randal. He remained as indifferent to
+the inviolate claims of the sex as if he had been an old man of
+ninety.
+
+"Did Miss Westerfield say anything about me?" was his next
+question.
+
+Slippery Mr. Sarrazin slid into another refuge: he entered a
+protest.
+
+"Here is a change of persons and places!" he exclaimed. "Am I a
+witness of the court of justice--and are you the lawyer who
+examines me? My memory is defective, my learned friend. _Non mi
+ricordo._ I know nothing about it."
+
+Randal changed his tone. "We have amused ourselves long enough,"
+he said. "I have serious reasons, Sarrazin, for wishing to know
+what passed between Miss Westerfield and you--and I trust my old
+friend to relieve my anxiety."
+
+The lawyer was accustomed to say of himself that he never did
+things by halves. His answer to Randal offered a proof of his
+accurate estimate of his own character.
+
+"Your old friend will deserve your confidence in him," he
+answered. "You want to know why Miss Westerfield called here. Her
+object in view was to twist me round her finger--and I beg to
+inform you that she has completely succeeded. My dear Randal,
+this pretty creature's cunning is remarkable even for a woman. I
+am an old lawyer, skilled in the ways of the world--and a young
+girl has completely overreached me. She asked--oh, heavens, how
+innocently!--if Mrs. Norman was likely to make a long stay at her
+present place of residence."
+
+Randal interrupted him. "You don't mean to tell me you have given
+her Catherine's address?"
+
+"Buck's Hotel, Sydenham," Mr. Sarrazin answered. "She has got the
+address down in her nice little pocketbook."
+
+"What amazing weakness!" Randal exclaimed.
+
+Mr. Sarrazin cordially agreed with him. "Amazing weakness, as you
+say. Pretty Miss Sydney has extracted more things, besides the
+address. She knows that Mrs. Norman is here on business relating
+to new investments of her money. She knows besides that one of
+the trustees is keeping us waiting. She also made sensible
+remarks. She mentioned having heard Mrs. Norman say that the air
+of London never agreed with her; and she hoped that a
+comparatively healthy neighborhood had been chosen for Mrs.
+Norman's place of residence. This, you see, was leading up to the
+discovery of the address. The spirit of mischief possessed me; I
+allowed Miss Westerfield to take a little peep at the truth.
+'Mrs. Norman is not actually in London,' I said; 'she is only in
+the neighborhood.' For what followed on this, my experience of
+ladies ought to have prepared me. I am ashamed to say _this_ lady
+took me completely by surprise."
+
+"What did she do?"
+
+"Fell on her knees, poor dear--and said: 'Oh, Mr. Sarrazin, be
+kinder to me than you have ever been yet; tell me where Mrs.
+Norman is!'--I put her back in her chair, and I took her
+handkerchief out of her pocket and I wiped her eyes."
+
+"And then you told her the address?"
+
+"I was near it, but I didn't do it yet. I asked what you had done
+in the matter. Alas, your kind heart has led you to promise more
+than you could perform. She had waited to hear from you if Mrs.
+Norman consented to see her, and had waited in vain. Hard on her,
+wasn't it? I was sorry, but I was still obdurate. I only felt the
+symptoms which warned me that I was going to make a fool of
+myself, when she let me into her secret for the first time, and
+said plainly what she wanted with Mrs. Norman. Her tears and her
+entreaties I had resisted. The confession of her motives
+overpowered me. It is right," cried Mr. Sarrazin, suddenly
+warming into enthusiasm, "that these two women should meet.
+Remember how that poor girl has proved that her repentance is no
+sham. I say, she has a right to tell, and the lady whom she has
+injured has a right to hear, what she has done to atone for the
+past, what confession she is willing to make to the one woman in
+the world (though she _is_ a divorced woman) who is most
+interested in hearing what Miss Westerfield's life has been with
+that wretched brother of yours. Ah, yes, I know what the English
+cant might say. Away with the English cant! it is the worst
+obstacle to the progress of the English nation!"
+
+Randal listened absently: he was thinking.
+
+There could be little doubt to what destination Sydney
+Westerfield had betaken herself, when she left the lawyer's
+office. At that moment, perhaps, she and Catherine were
+together--and together alone.
+
+Mr. Sarrazin had noticed his friend's silence. "Is it possible
+you don't agree with me?" he asked.
+
+"I don't feel as hopefully as you do, if these two ladies meet."
+
+"Ah, my friend, you are not a sanguine man by nature. If Mrs.
+Norman treats our poor Sydney just as a commonplace ill-tempered
+woman would treat her, I shall be surprised indeed. Say, if you
+like, that she will be insulted--of this I am sure, she will not
+return it; there is no expiation that is too bitter to be endured
+by that resolute little creature. Her fine nature has been
+tempered by adversity. A hard life has been Sydney's, depend upon
+it, in the years before you and I met with her. Good heavens!
+What would my wife say if she heard me? The women are nice, but
+they have their drawbacks. Let us wait till tomorrow, my dear
+boy; and let us believe in Sydney without allowing our wives--I
+beg your pardon, I mean _my_ wife--to suspect in what forbidden
+directions our sympathies are leading us. Oh, for shame!"
+
+Who could persist in feeling depressed in the company of such a
+man as this? Randal went home with the influence of Mr.
+Sarrazin's sanguine nature in undisturbed possession of him,
+until his old servant's gloomy face confronted him at the door.
+
+"Anything gone wrong, Malcolm?"
+
+"I'm sorry to say, sir, Mr. Herbert has left us."
+
+"Left us! Why?"
+
+"I don't know, sir."
+
+"Where has he gone?"
+
+"He didn't tell me."
+
+"Is there no letter? No message?"
+
+"There's a message, sir. Mr. Herbert came back--"
+
+"Stop! Where had he been when he came back?"
+
+"He said he felt a little lonely after you went out, and he
+thought it might cheer him up if he went to the club. I was to
+tell you where he had gone if you asked what had become of him.
+He said it kindly and pleasantly--quite like himself, sir. But,
+when he came back--if you'll excuse my saying so--I never saw a
+man in a worse temper. 'Tell my brother I am obliged to him for
+his hospitality, and I won't take advantage of it any longer.'
+That was Mr. Herbert's message. I tried to say a word. He banged
+the door, and away he went."
+
+Even Randal's patient and gentle nature rose in revolt against
+his brother's treatment of him. He entered his sitting-room in
+silence. Malcolm followed, and pointed to a letter on the table.
+"I think you must have thrown it away by mistake, sir," the old
+man explained; "I found it in the waste-paper basket." He bowed
+with the unfailing respect of the old school, and withdrew.
+
+Randal's first resolve was to dismiss his brother from further
+consideration. "Kindness is thrown away on Herbert," he thought;
+"I shall treat him for the future as he has treated me."
+
+But his brother was still in his mind. He opened Mrs. Presty's
+letter--on the chance that it might turn the current of his
+thoughts in a new direction.
+
+In spite of Mrs. Presty, in spite of himself, his heart softened
+toward the man who had behaved so badly to him. Instead of
+reading the letter, he was now trying to discover a connection
+between his brother's visit to the club and his brother's angry
+message. Had Herbert heard something said, among gossiping
+members in the smoking-room, which might account for his conduct?
+If Randal had belonged to the club he would have gone there to
+make inquiries. How could he get the information that he wanted,
+in some other way?
+
+After considering it for a while, he remembered the dinner that
+he had given to his friend Sarrazin on his return from the United
+States, and the departure of the lawyer to his club, with a
+purpose in view which interested them both. It was the same club
+to which Herbert belonged. Randal wrote at once to Mr. Sarrazin,
+mentioning what had happened, and acknowledging the anxiety tha t
+weighed on his mind.
+
+Having instructed Malcolm to take the letter to the lawyer's
+house, and, if he was not at home, to inquire where he might be
+found, Randal adopted the readiest means of composing himself, in
+the servant's absence, by lighting his pipe.
+
+He was enveloped in clouds of tobacco-smoke--the only clouds
+which we can trust never to prove unworthy of our confidence in
+them--when Mrs. Presty's letter caught his attention. If the
+month had been January instead of July, he would have thrown it
+into the fire. Under present circumstances, he took it up and
+read it:
+
+
+
+"I bear no malice, dear Randal, and I write to you as
+affectionately as if you had kept your temper on the occasion
+when we last met.
+
+"You will be pleased to hear that Catherine was as thoroughly
+distressed as you could wish her to be, when it became my
+disagreeable duty to mention what had passed between us, by way
+of accounting for your absence. She was quite unable to rally her
+spirits, even with dear Captain Bennydeck present to encourage
+her.
+
+"'I am not receiving you as I ought,' she said to him, when we
+began dinner, 'but there is perhaps some excuse for me. I have
+lost the regard and esteem of an old friend, who has cruelly
+wronged me.' From motives of delicacy (which I don't expect you
+to understand) she refrained from mentioning your name. The
+prettiest answer that I ever heard was the answer that the
+Captain returned. 'Let the true friend,' he said, 'take the place
+in your heart which the false friend has lost.'
+
+"He kissed her hand. If you had seen how he did it, and how she
+looked at him, you would have felt that you had done more toward
+persuading my daughter to marry the Captain than any other person
+about her, myself included. You had deserted her; you had thrown
+her back on the one true friend left. Thank you, Randal. In our
+best interests, thank you.
+
+"It is needless to add that I got out of the way, and took Kitty
+with me, at the earliest opportunity--and left them by
+themselves.
+
+"At bed-time I went into Catherine's room. Our interview began
+and ended in less than a minute. It was useless to ask if the
+Captain had proposed marriage; her agitation sufficiently
+informed me of what had happened. My one question was: 'Dearest
+Catherine, have you said Yes?' She turned shockingly pale, and
+answered: 'I have not said No.' Could anything be more
+encouraging? God bless you; we shall meet at the wedding."
+
+
+
+Randal laid down the letter and filled his pipe again. He was not
+in the least exasperated; he was only anxious to hear from Mr.
+Sarrazin. If Mrs. Presty had seen him at that moment, she would
+have said to herself: "I forgot the wretch was a smoker."
+
+In half an hour more the door was opened by Malcolm, and Mr.
+Sarrazin in person answered his friend.
+
+"There are no such incorrigible gossips," he said, "as men in the
+smoking-room of a club. Those popular newspapers began the
+mischief, and the editor of one of them completed it. How he got
+his information I am not able to say. The small-talk turned on
+that report about the charming widow; and the editor
+congratulated himself on the delicacy of his conduct. 'When the
+paragraph reached me,' he said, 'the writer mentioned that Mrs.
+Norman was that well-known lady, the divorced Mrs. Herbert
+Linley. I thought this rather too bad, and I cut it out.' Your
+brother appears to have been present--but he seldom goes to the
+club, and none of the members knew him even by sight. Shall I
+give you a light? Your pipe's out."
+
+Randal's feelings, at that moment, were not within reach of the
+comforting influence of tobacco.
+
+"Do you think your brother has gone to Sydenham?" Mr. Sarrazin
+asked.
+
+Randal answered: "I haven't a doubt of it now."
+
+
+
+Chapter XLIII.
+
+
+Know Your Own Mind.
+
+
+The garden of the hotel at Sydenham had originally belonged to a
+private house. Of great extent, it had been laid out in excellent
+taste. Flower-beds and lawns, a handsome fountain, seats shaded
+by groups of fine trees at their full growth, completed the
+pastoral charm of the place. A winding path led across the garden
+from the back of the house. It had been continued by the
+speculator who purchased the property, until it reached a road at
+the extremity of the grounds which communicated with the Crystal
+Palace. Visitors to the hotel had such pleasant associations with
+the garden that many of them returned at future opportunities
+instead of trying the attraction of some other place. Various
+tastes and different ages found their wishes equally consulted
+here. Children rejoiced in the finest playground they had ever
+seen. Remote walks, secluded among shrubberies, invited persons
+of reserved disposition who came as strangers, and as strangers
+desired to remain. The fountain and the lawn collected sociable
+visitors, who were always ready to make acquaintance with each
+other. Even the amateur artist could take liberties with Nature,
+and find the accommodating limits of the garden sufficient for
+his purpose. Trees in the foreground sat to him for likenesses
+that were never recognized; and hills submitted to unprovoked
+familiarities, on behalf of brushes which were not daunted by
+distance.
+
+On the day after the dinner which had so deplorably failed, in
+respect of one of the guests invited, to fulfill Catherine's
+anticipations, there was a festival at the Palace. It had proved
+so generally attractive to the guests at the hotel that the
+grounds were almost deserted.
+
+As the sun declined, on a lovely summer evening, the few invalids
+feebly wandering about the flower-beds, or resting under the
+trees, began to return to the house in dread of the dew.
+Catherine and her child, with the nursemaid in attendance, were
+left alone in the garden. Kitty found her mother, as she openly
+declared, "not such good company as usual." Since the day when
+her grandmother had said the fatal words which checked all
+further allusion to her father, the child had shown a disposition
+to complain, if she was not constantly amused. She complained of
+Mrs. Presty now.
+
+"I think grandmamma might have taken me to the Crystal Palace,"
+she said.
+
+"My dear, your grandmamma has friends with her--ladies and
+gentlemen who don't care to be troubled with a child."
+
+Kitty received this information in a very unamiable spirit. "I
+hate ladies and gentlemen!" she said.
+
+"Even Captain Bennydeck?" her mother asked.
+
+"No; I like my nice Captain. And I like the waiters. They would
+take me to the Crystal Palace--only they're always busy. I wish
+it was bedtime; I don't know what to do with myself."
+
+"Take a little walk with Susan."
+
+"Where shall I go?"
+
+Catherine looked toward the gate which opened on the road, and
+proposed a visit to the old man who kept the lodge.
+
+Kitty shook her head. There was an objection to the old man. "He
+asks questions; he wants to know how I get on with my sums. He's
+proud of his summing; and he finds me out when I'm wrong. I don't
+like the lodge-keeper."
+
+Catherine looked the other way, toward the house. The pleasant
+fall of water in the basin of the distant fountain was just
+audible. "Go and feed the gold-fishes," she suggested.
+
+This was a prospect of amusement which at once raised Kitty's
+spirits. "That's the thing!" she cried, and ran off to the
+fountain, with the nursemaid after her.
+
+Catherine seated herself under the trees, and watched in solitude
+the decline of the sun in a cloudless sky. The memory of the
+happy years of her marriage had never been so sadly and
+persistently present to her mind as at this time, when the choice
+of another married life waited her decision to become an
+accomplished fact. Remembrances of the past, which she had such
+bitter reason to regret, and forebodings of the future, in which
+she was more than half inclined to believe, oppressed her at one
+and the same moment. She thought of the different circumstances,
+so widely separated by time, under which Herbert (years ago) and
+Bennydeck (twenty-four hours since) had each owned his love, and
+pleaded for an indulgent hearing. Her mind contrasted the
+dissimilar results.
+
+Pressed by the faithless man who had so cruelly wronged her in
+after-years, she only wondered why he had waited so long before h
+e asked her to marry him. Addressed with equal ardor by that
+other man, whose age, whose character, whose modest devotion
+offered her every assurance of happiness that a woman could
+desire, she had struggled against herself, and had begged him to
+give her a day to consider. That day was now drawing to an end.
+As she watched the setting sun, the phantom of her guilty husband
+darkened the heavenly light; imbittered the distrust of herself
+which made her afraid to say Yes; and left her helpless before
+the hesitation which prevented her from saying No.
+
+The figure of a man appeared on the lonely path that led to the
+lodge gate.
+
+Impulsively she rose from her seat as he advanced. She sat down
+again. After that first act of indecision, the flutter of her
+spirits abated; she was able to think.
+
+To avoid him, after he had spared her at her own request, would
+have been an act of ingratitude: to receive him was to place
+herself once more in the false position of a woman too undecided
+to know her own mind. Forced to choose between these
+alternatives, her true regard for Bennydeck forbade her to think
+of herself, and encouraged her to wait for him. As he came
+nearer, she saw anxiety in his face and observed an open letter
+in his hand. He smiled as he approached her, and asked leave to
+take a chair at her side. At the same time, when he perceived
+that she had noticed his letter, he put it away hurriedly in his
+pocket.
+
+"I hope nothing has happened to annoy you," she said.
+
+He smiled again; and asked if she was thinking of his letter. "It
+is only a report," he added, "from my second in command, whom I
+have left in charge of my Home. He is an excellent man; but I am
+afraid his temper is not proof against the ingratitude which we
+sometimes meet with. He doesn't yet make allowances for what even
+the best natures suffer, under the deteriorating influence of
+self-distrust and despair. No, I am not anxious about the results
+of this case. I forget all my anxieties (except one) when I am
+with you."
+
+His eyes told her that he was about to return to the one subject
+that she dreaded. She tried--as women will try, in the little
+emergencies of their lives--to gain time.
+
+"I am interested about your Home," she said: "I want to know what
+sort of place it is. Is the discipline very severe?"
+
+"There is no discipline," he answered warmly. "My one object is
+to be a friend to my friendless fellow-creatures; and my one way
+of governing them is to follow the teaching of the Sermon on the
+Mount. Whatever else I may remind them of, when they come to me,
+I am determined not to remind them of a prison. For this
+reason--though I pity the hardened wanderers of the streets, I
+don't open my doors to them. Many a refuge, in which discipline
+is inevitable, is open to these poor sinners already. My welcome
+is offered to penitents and sufferers of another kind--who have
+fallen from positions in life, in which the sense of honor has
+been cultivated; whose despair is associated with remembrances
+which I may so encourage, with the New Testament to help me, as
+to lead them back to the religious influences under which their
+purer and happier lives may have been passed. Here and there I
+meet with disappointments. But I persist in my system of trusting
+them as freely as if they were my own children; and, for the most
+part, they justify my confidence in them. On the day--if it ever
+comes--when I find discipline necessary, I shall suffer my
+disappointment and close my doors."
+
+"Is your house open," Catherine asked, "to men and women alike?"
+
+He was eager to speak with her on a subject more interesting to
+him even than his Home. Answering her question, in this frame of
+mind, his thoughts wandered; he drew lines absently with his
+walking-stick on the soft earth under the trees.
+
+"The means at my disposal," he said, "are limited. I have been
+obliged to choose between the men and the women."
+
+"And you have chosen women?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because a lost woman is a more friendless creature than a lost
+man."
+
+"Do they come to you? or do you look for them?"
+
+"They mostly come to me. There is one young woman, however, now
+waiting to see me, whom I have been looking for. I am deeply
+interested in her."
+
+"Is it her beauty that interests you?"
+
+"I have not seen her since she was a child. She is the daughter
+of an old friend of mine, who died many years ago."
+
+"And with that claim on you, you keep her waiting?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He let his stick drop on the ground and looked at Catherine; but
+he offered no explanation of his strange conduct. She was a
+little disappointed. "You have been some time away from your
+Home," she said; still searching for his reasons. "When do you go
+back?"
+
+"I go back," he answered, "when I know whether I may thank God
+for being the happiest man living."
+
+They were both silent.
+
+
+
+Chapter XLIV.
+
+
+Think of Consequences.
+
+
+Catherine listened to the fall of water in the basin of the
+fountain. She was conscious of a faint hope--a hope unworthy of
+her--that Kitty might get weary of the gold-fishes, and might
+interrupt them. No such thing happened; no stranger appeared on
+the path which wound through the garden. She was alone with him.
+The influences of the still and fragrant summer evening were
+influences which breathed of love.
+
+"Have you thought of me since yesterday?" he asked gently.
+
+She owned that she had thought of him.
+
+"Is there no hope that your heart will ever incline toward me?"
+
+"I daren't consult my heart. If I had only to consider my own
+feelings--" She stopped.
+
+"What else have you to consider?"
+
+"My past life--how I have suffered, and what I have to repent
+of."
+
+"Has your married life not been a happy one?" he asked.
+
+"Not a happy one--in the end," she answered.
+
+"Through no fault of yours, I am sure?"
+
+"Through no fault of mine, certainly."
+
+"And yet you said just now that you had something to repent of?"
+
+"I was not thinking of my husband, Captain Bennydeck, when I said
+that. If I have injured any person, the person is myself."
+
+She was thinking of that fatal concession to the advice of her
+mother, and to the interests of her child, which placed her in a
+false position toward the honest man who loved her and trusted
+her. If he had been less innocent in the ways of the world, and
+not so devotedly fond of her, he might, little by little, have
+persuaded Catherine to run the risk of shocking him by a
+confession of the truth. As it was, his confidence in her raised
+him high above the reach of suspicions which might have occurred
+to other men. He saw her turn pale; he saw distress in her face,
+which he interpreted as a silent reproach to him for the
+questions he had asked.
+
+"I hope you will forgive me?" he said simply.
+
+She was astonished. "What have I to forgive?"
+
+"My want of delicacy."
+
+"Oh, Captain Bennydeck, you speak of one of your great merits as
+if it were a fault! Over and over again I have noticed your
+delicacy, and admired it."
+
+He was too deeply in earnest to abandon his doubts of himself.
+
+"I have ignorantly led you to think of your sorrows," he said;
+"sorrows that I cannot console. I don't deserve to be forgiven.
+May I make the one excuse in my power? May I speak of myself?"
+
+She told him by a gesture that he had made a needless request.
+
+"The life I have led," he resumed, "accounts, perhaps, in some
+degree, for what is deficient in me. At school, I was not a
+popular boy; I only made one friend, and he has long since been
+numbered with the dead. Of my life at college, and afterward in
+London, I dare not speak to you; I look back at it with horror.
+My school-friend decided my choice of a profession; he went into
+the navy. After a while, not knowing what else to do, I followed
+his example. I liked the life--I may say the sea saved me. For
+years, I was never on shore for more than a few weeks at a time.
+I saw nothing of society; I was hardly ever in the company of
+ladies. The next change in my life associated me with an Arctic
+expedition. God forbid I should tell you of what men go through
+who are lost in the regions of eternal ice! Let me only say I was
+preserved--miraculously preserved--to profit by that dreadful
+experience. It made a new man of me; it altered me ( I hope for
+the better) into what I am now. Oh, I feel that I ought to have
+kept my secret yesterday--I mean my daring to love you. I should
+have waited till you knew more of me; till my conduct pleased you
+perhaps, and spoke for me. You won't laugh, I am sure, if I
+confess (at my age!) that I am inexperienced. Never till I met
+you have I known what true love is--and this at forty years old.
+How some people would laugh! I own it seems melancholy to me."
+
+"No; not melancholy."
+
+Her voice trembled. Agitation, which it was not a pain but a
+luxury to feel, was gently taking possession of her. Where
+another man might have seen that her tenderness was getting the
+better of her discretion, and might have presumed on the
+discovery, this man, innocently blind to his own interests, never
+even attempted to take advantage of her. No more certain way
+could have been devised, by the most artful lover, of touching
+the heart of a generous woman, and making it his own. The
+influence exerted over Catherine by the virtues of Bennydeck's
+character--his unaffected kindness, his manly sympathy, his
+religious convictions so deeply felt, so modestly restrained from
+claiming notice--had been steadily increasing in the intimacy of
+daily intercourse. Catherine had never felt his ascendancy over
+her as strongly as she felt it now. By fine degrees, the warning
+remembrances which had hitherto made her hesitate lost their hold
+on her memory. Hardly conscious herself of what she was doing,
+she began to search his feelings in his own presence. Such love
+as his had been unknown in her experience; the luxury of looking
+into it, and sounding it to its inmost depths, was more than the
+woman's nature could resist.
+
+"I think you hardly do yourself justice," she said. "Surely you
+don't regret having felt for me so truly, when I told you
+yesterday that my old friend had deserted me?"
+
+"No, indeed!"
+
+"Do you like to remember that you showed no jealous curiosity to
+know who my friend was?"
+
+"I should have been ashamed of myself if I had asked the
+question."
+
+"And did you believe that I had a good motive--a motive which you
+might yourself have appreciated--for not telling you the name of
+that friend?"
+
+"Is he some one whom I know?"
+
+"Ought you to ask me that, after what I have just said?"
+
+"Pray forgive me! I spoke without thinking."
+
+"I can hardly believe it, when I remember how you spoke to me
+yesterday. I could never have supposed, before we became
+acquainted with each other, that it was in the nature of a man to
+understand me so perfectly, to be so gentle and so considerate in
+feeling for my distress. You confused me a little, I must own, by
+what you said afterward. But I am not sure that ought to be
+severe in blaming you. Sympathy--I mean such sympathy as
+yours--sometimes says more than discretion can always approve.
+Have you not found it so yourself?"
+
+"I have found it so with you."
+
+"And perhaps I have shown a little too plainly how dependent I am
+on you--how dreadful it would be to me if I lost you too as a
+friend?"
+
+She blushed as she said it. When the words had escaped her, she
+felt that they might bear another meaning than the simple meaning
+which she had attached to them. He took her hand; his doubts of
+himself, his needless fear of offending her, restrained him no
+longer.
+
+"You can never lose me," he said, "if you will only let me be the
+nearest friend that a woman can have. Bear with me, dearest! I
+ask for so much; I have so little to offer in return. I dream of
+a life with you which is perhaps too perfectly happy to be
+enjoyed on earth. And yet, I cannot resign my delusion. Must my
+poor heart always long for happiness which is beyond my reach? If
+an overruling Providence guides our course through this world,
+may we not sometimes hope for happier ends than our mortal eyes
+can see?"
+
+He waited a moment--and sighed--and dropped her hand. She hid her
+face; she knew what it would tell him: she was ashamed to let him
+see it.
+
+"I didn't mean to distress you," he said sadly.
+
+She let him see her face. For a moment only, she looked at
+him--and then let silence tell him the rest.
+
+His arms closed round her. Slowly, the glory of the sun faded
+from the heavens, and the soft summer twilight fell over the
+earth. "I can't speak," he whispered; "my happiness is too much
+for me."
+
+"Are you sure of your happiness?" she asked.
+
+"Could I think as I am thinking now, if I were not sure of it?"
+
+"Are you thinking of _me?_"
+
+"Of you--and of all that you will be to me in the future. Oh, my
+angel, if God grants us many years to come, what a perfect life I
+see!"
+
+"Tell me--what do you see?"
+
+"I see a husband and wife who are all in all to each other. If
+friends come to us, we are glad to bid them welcome; but we are
+always happiest by ourselves."
+
+"Do we live in retirement?"
+
+"We live where you like best to live. Shall it be in the
+country?"
+
+"Yes! yes! You have spoken of the sea as you might have spoken of
+your best friend--we will be near the sea. But I must not keep
+you selfishly all to myself. I must remember how good you have
+been to poor creatures who don't feel our happiness, and who need
+your kindness. Perhaps I might help you? Do you doubt it?"
+
+"I only doubt whether I ought to let you see what I have seen; I
+am only afraid of the risk of making you unhappy. You tempt me to
+run the risk. The help of a woman--and of such a woman as you
+are--is the one thing I have wanted. Your influence would succeed
+where my influence has often failed. How good, how thoughtful you
+would be!"
+
+"I only want to be worthy of you," she said, humbly. "When may I
+see your Home?"
+
+He drew her closer to him: tenderly and timidly he kissed her for
+the first time. "It rests with you," he answered. "When will you
+be my wife?"
+
+She hesitated; he felt her trembling. "Is there any obstacle?" he
+asked.
+
+Before she could reply, Kitty's voice was heard calling to her
+mother--Kitty ran up to them.
+
+Catherine turned cold as the child caught her by the hand,
+eagerly claiming her attention. All that she should have
+remembered, all that she had forgotten in a few bright moments of
+illusion, rose in judgment against her, and struck her mind
+prostrate in an instant, when she felt Kitty's touch.
+
+Bennydeck saw the change. Was it possible that the child's sudden
+appearance had startled her? Kitty had something to say, and said
+it before he could speak.
+
+"Mamma, I want to go where the other children are going. Susan's
+gone to her supper. You take me."
+
+Her mother was not even listening. Kitty turned impatiently to
+Bennydeck. "Why won't mamma speak to me?" she asked. He quieted
+her by a word. "You shall go with me." His anxiety about
+Catherine was more than he could endure. "Pray let me take you
+back to the house," he said. "I am afraid you are not well."
+
+"I shall be better directly. Do me a kindness--take the child!"
+
+She spoke faintly and vacantly. Bennydeck hesitated. She lifted
+her trembling hands in entreaty. "I beg you will leave me!" Her
+voice, her manner, made it impossible to disobey. He turned
+resignedly to Kitty and asked which way she wanted to go. The
+child pointed down the path to one of the towers of the Crystal
+Palace, visible in the distance. "The governess has taken the
+others to see the company go away," she said; "I want to go too."
+
+Bennydeck looked back before he lost sight of Catherine.
+
+She remained seated, in the attitude in which he had left her. At
+the further end of the path which led to the hotel, he thought he
+saw a figure in the twilight, approaching from the house. There
+would be help near, if Catherine wanted it.
+
+His uneasy mind was in some degree relieved, as he and Kitty left
+the garden together.
+
+
+
+Chapter XLV.
+
+
+Love Your Enemies.
+
+
+She tried to think of Bennydeck.
+
+Her eyes followed him as long as he was in sight, but her
+thoughts wandered. To look at him now was to look at the little
+companion walking by his side. Still, the child reminded her of
+the living father; still, the child innocently tortured her with
+the consciousness of deceit. The faithless man from whom the law
+had released her, possessed himself of her thoughts, in spite of
+the law. He, and he only, was the visionary companion of her
+solitude when she was left by herself.
+
+Did he remind her of the sin that he had committed?--of the
+insult that he had inflicted on the woman whom he had vowed to
+love and cherish? No! he recalled to her the years of love that
+she had passed by his side; he upbraided her with the happiness
+which she had owed to him, in the prime and glory of her life.
+Woman! set _that_ against the wrong which I have done to you. You
+have the right to condemn me, and Society has the right to
+condemn me--but I am your child's father still. Forget me if you
+can!
+
+All thought will bear the test of solitude, excepting only the
+thought that finds its origin in hopeless self-reproach. The soft
+mystery of twilight, the solemn silence of the slowly-coming
+night, daunted Catherine in that lonely place. She rose to return
+to light and human beings. As she set her face toward the house,
+a discovery confronted her. She was not alone.
+
+A woman was standing on the path, apparently looking at her.
+
+In the dim light, and at the distance between them, recognition
+of the woman was impossible. She neither moved nor spoke.
+Strained to their utmost point of tension, Catherine's nerves
+quivered at the sight of that shadowy solitary figure. She
+dropped back on the seat. In tones that trembled she said: "Who
+are you? What do you want?"
+
+The voice that answered was, like her own voice, faint with fear.
+It said: "I want a word with you."
+
+Moving slowly forward--stopping--moving onward again--hesitating
+again--the woman at last approached. There was light enough left
+to reveal her face, now that she was near. It was the face of
+Sydney Westerfield.
+
+The survival of childhood, in the mature human being, betrays
+itself most readily in the sex that bears children. The chances
+and changes of life show the child's mobility of emotion
+constantly associating itself with the passions of the woman. At
+the moment of recognition the troubled mind of Catherine was
+instantly steadied, under the influence of that coarsest sense
+which levels us with the animals--the sense of anger.
+
+"I am amazed at your audacity," she said.
+
+There was no resentment--there was only patient submission in
+Sydney's reply.
+
+"Twice I have approached the house in which you are living; and
+twice my courage has failed me. I have gone away again--I have
+walked, I don't know where, I don't know how far. Shame and fear
+seemed to be insensible to fatigue. This is my third attempt. If
+I was a little nearer to you, I think you would see what the
+effort has cost me. I have not much to say. May I ask you to hear
+me?"
+
+"You have taken me by surprise, Miss Westerfield. You have no
+right to do that; I refuse to hear you."
+
+"Try, madam, to bear in mind that no unhappy creature, in my
+place, would expose herself to your anger and contempt without a
+serious reason. Will you think again?"
+
+"No!"
+
+Sydney turned to go away--and suddenly stopped.
+
+Another person was advancing from the hotel; an interruption, a
+trivial domestic interruption, presented itself. The nursemaid
+had missed the child, and had come into the garden to see if she
+was with her mother.
+
+"Where is Miss Kitty, ma'am?" the girl asked.
+
+Her mistress told her what had happened, and sent her to the
+Palace to relieve Captain Bennydeck of the charge that he had
+undertaken. Susan listened, looking at Sydney and recognizing the
+familiar face. As the girl moved away, Sydney spoke to her.
+
+"I hope little Kitty is well and happy?"
+
+The mother does not live who could have resisted the tone in
+which that question was put. The broken heart, the love for the
+child that still lived in it, spoke in accents that even touched
+the servant. She came back; remembering the happy days when the
+governess had won their hearts at Mount Morven, and, for a moment
+at least, remembering nothing else.
+
+"Quite well and happy, miss, thank you," Susan said.
+
+As she hurried away on her errand, she saw her mistress beckon to
+Sydney to return, and place a chair for her. The nursemaid was
+not near enough to hear what followed.
+
+"Miss Westerfield, will you forget what I said just now?" With
+those words, Catherine pointed to the chair. "I am ready to hear
+you," she resumed--"but I have something to ask first. Does what
+you wish to say to me relate only to yourself?"
+
+"It relates to another person, as well as to myself."
+
+That reply, and the inference to which it led, tried Catherine's
+resolution to preserve her self-control, as nothing had tried it
+yet.
+
+"If that other person," she began, "means Mr. Herbert Linley--"
+
+Sydney interrupted her, in words which she was entirely
+unprepared to hear.
+
+"I shall never see Mr. Herbert Linley again."
+
+"Has he deserted you?"
+
+"No. It is _I_ who have left _him._"
+
+"You!"
+
+The emphasis laid on that one word forced Sydney to assert
+herself for the first time.
+
+"If I had not left him of my own free will," she said, "what else
+would excuse me for venturing to come here?"
+
+Catherine's sense of justice felt the force of that reply. At the
+same time her sense of injury set its own construction on
+Sydney's motive. "Has his cruelty driven you away from him?" she
+asked.
+
+"If he has been cruel to me," Sydney answered, "do you think I
+should have come here to complain of it to You? Do me the justice
+to believe that I am not capable of such self-degradation as
+that. I have nothing to complain of."
+
+"And yet you have left him?"
+
+"He has been all that is kind and considerate: he has done
+everything that a man in his unhappy position could do to set my
+mind at ease. And yet I have left him. Oh, I claim no merit for
+my repentance, bitterly as I feel it! I might not have had the
+courage to leave him--if he had loved me as he once loved you."
+
+"Miss Westerfield, you are the last person living who ought to
+allude to my married life."
+
+"You may perhaps pardon the allusion, madam, when you have heard
+what I have still to say. I owe it to Mr. Herbert Linley, if not
+to you, to confess that his life with me has _not_ been a life of
+happiness. He has tried, compassionately tried, to keep his
+secret sorrow from discovery, and he has failed. I had long
+suspected the truth; but I only saw it in his face when he found
+the book you left behind you at the hotel. Your image has, from
+first to last, been the one living image in his guilty heart. I
+am the miserable victim of a man's passing fancy. You have been,
+you are still, the one object of a husband's love. Ask your own
+heart if the woman lives who can say to you what I have
+said--unless she knew it to be true."
+
+Catherine's head sank on her bosom; her helpless hands lay
+trembling on her lap. Overpowered by the confession which she had
+just heard--a confession which had followed closely on the
+thoughts inspired by the appearance of the child--her agitation
+was beyond control; her mind was unequal to the effort of
+decision. The woman who had been wronged--who had the right to
+judge for herself, and to speak for herself--was the silent woman
+of the two!
+
+It was not quite dark yet. Sydney could see as well as hear.
+
+For the first time since the beginning of the interview, she
+allowed the impulse of the moment to lead her astray. In her
+eagerness to complete the act of atonement, she failed to
+appreciate the severity of the struggle that was passing in
+Catherine's mind. She alluded again to Herbert Linley, and she
+spoke too soon.
+
+"Will you let him ask your pardon?" she said. "He expects no
+more."
+
+Catherine's spirit was roused in an instant. "He expects too
+much!" she answered, sternly. "Is he here by your connivance? Is
+he, too, waiting to take me by surprise?"
+
+"I am incapable, madam, of taking such a liberty with you as
+that; I may perhaps have hoped to be able to tell him, by
+writing, of a different reception--" She checked herself. "I beg
+your pardon, if I have ventured to hope. I dare not ask you to
+alter your opinion--"
+
+"Do you dare to look the truth in the face?" Catherine
+interposed. "Do you remember what sacred ties that man has
+broken? what memories he has profaned? what years of faithful
+love he has cast from him? Must I tell you how he poisoned his
+wife's mind with doubts of his truth and despair of his honor,
+when he basely deserted her? You talk of your repentance. Does
+your repentance forget that he would still have been my blameless
+husband but for you?"
+
+Sydney silently submitted to reproach, silently endured the shame
+that finds no excuse for itself.
+
+Catherine looked at her and relented. The noble nature which
+could stoop to anger, but never sink to the lower depths of
+malice and persecution, restrained itself and made amends. "I say
+it in no unkindness to you," she resumed. "But when you ask me to
+forgive, consider what you ask me to forget. It will only
+distress us both if we remain longer together," she continued,
+rising as she spoke. "Perhaps you will believe that I mean well,
+when I ask if there is anything I can do for you?"
+
+"Nothing!"
+
+All the desolation of the lost woman told its terrible tale in
+that one word. Invited to rest herself in the hotel, she asked
+leave to remain where she was; the mere effort of rising was too
+much for her now. Catherine said the parting words kindly. "I
+believe in your good intentions; I believe in your repentance."
+
+"Believe in my punishment!" After that reply, no more was said.
+
+Behind the trees that closed the view at the further extremity of
+the lawn the moon was rising. As the two women lost sight of each
+other, the new light, pure and beautiful, began to dawn over the
+garden.
+
+
+
+Chapter XLVI.
+
+
+Nil Desperandum.
+
+
+No horror of her solitude, no melancholy recollections, no dread
+of the future disturbed Sydney's mind. The one sense left in her
+was the sense of fatigue. Vacantly, mechanically, the girl rested
+as a tired animal might have rested. She saw nothing, heard
+nothing; the one feeling of which she was conscious was a dull
+aching in every limb. The moon climbed the heavens, brightened
+the topmost leaves of the trees, found the gloom in which Sydney
+was hidden, and cheered it tenderly with radiant light. She was
+too weary to sleep, too weary even to shade her face when the
+moonbeams touched it. While the light still strengthened, while
+the slow minutes still followed each other unheeded, the one
+influence that could rouse Sydney found her at last--set her
+faint heart throbbing--called her prostrate spirit to life again.
+She heard a glad cry of recognition in a child's voice:
+
+"Oh, Sydney, dear, is it you?"
+
+In another instant her little pupil and playfellow of former days
+was in her arms.
+
+"My darling, how did you come here?"
+
+Susan answered the question. "We are on our way back from the
+Palace, miss. I am afraid," she said, timidly, "that we ought to
+go in."
+
+Silently resigned, Sydney tried to release the child. Kitty clung
+to her and kissed her; Kitty set the nurse at defiance. "Do you
+think I am going to leave Syd now I have found her? Susan, I am
+astonished at you!"
+
+Susan gave way. Where the nature is gentle, kindness and delicacy
+go hand-in-hand together, undisturbed by the social
+irregularities which beset the roadway of life. The nursemaid
+drew back out of hearing. Kitty's first questions followed each
+other in breathless succession. Some of them proved to be hard,
+indeed, to answer truly, and without reserve. She inquired if
+Sydney had seen her mother, and then she was eager to know why
+Sydney had been left in the garden alone.
+
+"Why haven't you gone back to the house with mamma?" she asked.
+
+"Don't ask me, dear," was all that Sydney could say. Kitty drew
+the inevitable conclusion: "Have you and mamma quarreled?"
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"Then come indoors with me."
+
+"Wait a little, Kitty, and tell me something about yourself. How
+do you get on with your lessons?"
+
+"You dear foolish governess, do you expect me to learn my
+lessons, when I haven't got you to teach me? Where have you been
+all this long while? _I_ wouldn't have gone away and left _you!_"
+She paused; her eager eyes studied Sydney's face with the
+unrestrained curiosity of a child. "Is it the moonlight that
+makes you look pale and wretched?" she said. "Or are you really
+unhappy? Tell me, Syd, do you ever sing any of those songs that I
+taught you, when you first came to us?"
+
+"Never, dear!"
+
+"Have you anybody to go out walking with you and running races
+with you, as I did?"
+
+"No, my sweet! Those days have gone by forever."
+
+Kitty laid her head sadly on Sydney's bosom. "It's not the
+moonlight," she said; "shall I tell you a secret? Sometimes I am
+not happy either. Poor papa is dead. He always liked you--I'm
+sure you are sorry for him."
+
+Astonishment held Sydney speechless. Before she could ask who had
+so cruelly deceived the child, and for what purpose, the
+nursemaid, standing behind the chair, warned her to be silent by
+a touch.
+
+"I think we are all unhappy now," Kitty went on, still following
+her own little train of thought. "Mamma isn't like what she used
+to be. And even my nice Captain hasn't a word to say to me. He
+wouldn't come back with us; he said he would go back by himself."
+
+Another allusion which took Sydney by surprise! She asked who the
+Captain was. Kitty started as if the question shocked her. "Oh
+dear, dear, this is what comes of your going away and leaving us!
+You don't know Captain Bennydeck."
+
+The name of her father's correspondent! The name which she
+vaguely remembered to have heard in her childhood! "Where did you
+first meet with him?" she inquired.
+
+"At the seaside, dear!"
+
+"Do you mean at Sandyseal?"
+
+"Yes. Mamma liked him--and grandmamma liked him (which is
+wonderful)--and I gave him a kiss. Promise me not to tell! My
+nice Captain is going to be my new papa."
+
+Was there any possible connection between what Kitty had just
+said, and what the poor child had been deluded into believing
+when she spoke of her father? Even Susan seemed to be in the
+secret of this strange second marriage! She interfered with a
+sharp reproof. "You mustn't talk in that way, Miss Kitty. Please
+put her off your lap, Miss Westerfield; we have been here too
+long already."
+
+Kitty proposed a compromise; "I'll go," she said, "if Syd will
+come with me."
+
+"I'm sorry, my darling, to disappoint you."
+
+Kitty refused to believe it. "You couldn't disappoint me if you
+tried," she said boldly.
+
+"Indeed, indeed, I must go away. Oh, Kitty, try to bear it as I
+do!"
+
+Entreaties were useless; the child refused to hear of another
+parting. "I want to make you and mamma friends again. Don't break
+my heart, Sydney! Come home with me, and teach me, and play with
+me, and love me!"
+
+She pulled desperately at Sydney's dress; she called to Susan to
+help her. With tears in her eyes, the girl did her best to help
+them both. "Miss Westerfield will wait here," she said to Kitty,
+"while you speak to your mamma.--Say Yes!" she whispered to
+Sydney; "it's our only chance."
+
+The child instantly exacted a promise. In the earnestness of her
+love she even dictated the words. "Say it after me, as I used to
+say my lessons," she insisted. "Say, 'Kitty, I promise to wait
+for you.'"
+
+Who that loved her could have refused to say it! In one form or
+another, the horrid necessity for deceit had followed, and was
+still following, that first, worst act of falsehood--the
+elopement from Mount Morven.
+
+Kitty was now as eager to go as she had been hitherto resolute to
+remain. She called for Susan to follow her, and ran to the hotel.
+
+"My mistress won't let her come back--you can leave the garden
+that way." The maid pointed along the path to the left and
+hurried after the child.
+
+They were gone--and Sydney was alone again.
+
+At the parting with Kitty, the measure of her endurance was full.
+Not even the farewell at Mount Morven had tried her by an ordeal
+so cruel as this. No kind woman was willing to receive her and
+employ her, now. The one creature left who loved her was the
+faithful little friend whom she must never see again. "I am still
+innocent to that child," she thought--"and I am parted from her
+forever!"
+
+She rose to leave the garden.
+
+A farewell look at the last place in which she had seen Kitty
+tempted her to indulge in a moment of delay. Her eyes rested on
+the turn in the path at which she had lost sight of the active
+little figure hastening away to plead her cause. Even in absence,
+the child was Sydney's good angel still. As she turned away to
+follow the path that had been shown to her, the relief of tears c
+ame at last. It cooled her burning head; it comforted her aching
+heart. She tried to walk on. The tears blinded her--she strayed
+from the path--she would have fallen but for a hand that caught
+her, and held her up. A man's voice, firm and deep and kind,
+quieted her first wild feeling of terror. "My child, you are not
+fit to be by yourself. Let me take care of you--let me comfort
+you, if I can."
+
+He carried her back to the seat that she had left, and waited by
+her in merciful silence.
+
+"You are very young to feel such bitter sorrow," he said, when
+she was composed again. "I don't ask what your sorrow is; I only
+want to know how I can help you."
+
+"Nobody can help me."
+
+"Can I take you back to your friends?"
+
+"I have no friends."
+
+"Pardon me, you have one friend at least--you have me."
+
+"You? A stranger?"
+
+"No human creature who needs my sympathy is a stranger."
+
+She turned toward him for the first time. In her new position,
+she was clearly visible in the light. He looked at her
+attentively. "I have seen you somewhere," he said, "before now."
+
+She had not noticed him when they had passed each other at
+Sandyseal. "I think you must be mistaken," she answered. "May I
+thank you for your kindness? and may I hope to be excused if I
+say good-night?"
+
+He detained her. "Are you sure that you are well enough to go
+away by yourself?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"I am quite sure!"
+
+He still detained her. His memory of that first meeting at the
+seaside hotel reminded him that he had seen her in the company of
+a man. At their second meeting, she was alone, and in tears. Sad
+experience led him to form his own conclusions. "If you won't let
+me take care of you," he said, "will you consider if I can be of
+any use to you, and will you call at that address?" He gave her
+his card. She took it without looking at it; she was confused;
+she hardly knew what to say. "Do you doubt me?" he asked--sadly,
+not angrily.
+
+"Oh, how can I do that! I doubt myself; I am not worthy of the
+interest you feel in me."
+
+"That is a sad thing to say," he answered. "Let me try to give
+you confidence in yourself. Do you go to London when you leave
+this place?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"To-morrow," he resumed, "I am going to see another poor girl who
+is alone in the world like you. If I tell you where she lives,
+will you ask her if I am a person to be trusted?"
+
+He had taken a letter from his pocket, while he was speaking; and
+he now tore off a part of the second leaf, and gave it to her. "I
+have only lately," he said, "received the address from a friend."
+
+As he offered that explanation, the shrill sound of a child's
+voice, raised in anger and entreaty, reached their ears from the
+neighborhood of the hotel. Faithful little Kitty had made her
+escape, determined to return to Sydney had been overtaken by the
+maid--and had been carried back in Susan's arms to the house.
+Sydney imagined that she was not perhaps alone in recognizing the
+voice. The stranger who had been so kind to her did certainly
+start and look round.
+
+The stillness of the night was disturbed no more. The man turned
+again to the person who had so strongly interested him. The
+person was gone.
+
+In fear of being followed, Sydney hurried to the railway station.
+By the light in the carriage she looked for the first time at the
+fragment of the letter and the card.
+
+The stranger had presented her with her own address! And, when
+she looked at the card, the name was Bennydeck!
+
+
+
+Chapter XLVII.
+
+
+Better Do It Than Wish It Done.
+
+
+More than once, on one and the same day, the Captain had been
+guilty of a weakness which would have taken his oldest friends by
+surprise, if they had seen him at the moment. He hesitated.
+
+A man who has commanded ships and has risked his life in the
+regions of the frozen deep, is a man formed by nature and taught
+by habit to meet emergency face to face, to see his course
+straight before him, and to take it, lead him where it may. But
+nature and habit, formidable forces as they are, find their
+master when they encounter the passion of Love.
+
+At once perplexed and distressed by that startling change in
+Catherine which he had observed when her child approached her,
+Bennydeck's customary firmness failed him, when the course of
+conduct toward his betrothed wife which it might be most becoming
+to follow presented itself to him as a problem to be solved. When
+Kitty asked him to accompany her nursemaid and herself on their
+return to the hotel, he had refused because he felt reluctant to
+intrude himself on Catherine's notice, until she was ready to
+admit him to her confidence of her own free will. Left alone, he
+began to doubt whether delicacy did really require him to make
+the sacrifice which he had contemplated not five minutes since.
+It was surely possible that Catherine might be waiting to see
+him, and might then offer the explanation which would prove to be
+equally a relief on both sides. He was on his way to the hotel
+when he met with Sydney Westerfield.
+
+To see a woman in the sorest need of all that kindness and
+consideration could offer, and to leave her as helpless as he had
+found her, would have been an act of brutal indifference
+revolting to any man possessed of even ordinary sensibility. The
+Captain had only followed his natural impulses, and had only said
+and done what, in nearly similar cases, he had said and done on
+other occasions.
+
+Left by himself, he advanced a few steps mechanically on the way
+by which Sydney had escaped him--and then stopped. Was there any
+sufficient reason for his following her, and intruding himself on
+her notice? She had recovered, she was in possession of his
+address, she had been referred to a person who could answer for
+his good intentions; all that it was his duty to do, had been
+done already. He turned back again, in the direction of the
+hotel.
+
+Hesitating once more, he paused half-way along the corridor which
+led to Catherine's sitting-room. Voices reached him from persons
+who had entered the house by the front door. He recognized Mrs.
+Presty's loud confident tones. She was taking leave of friends,
+and was standing with her back toward him. Bennydeck waited,
+unobserved, until he saw her enter the sitting-room. No such
+explanation as he was in search of could possibly take place in
+the presence of Catherine's mother. He returned to the garden.
+
+Mrs. Presty was in high spirits. She had enjoyed the Festival;
+she had taken the lead among the friends who accompanied her to
+the Palace; she had ordered everything, and paid for nothing, at
+that worst of all bad public dinners in England, the dinner which
+pretends to be French. In a buoyant frame of mind, ready for more
+enjoyment if she could only find it, what did she see on opening
+the sitting-room door? To use the expressive language of the
+stage, Catherine was "discovered alone"--with her elbows on the
+table, and her face hidden in her hands--the picture of despair.
+
+Mrs. Presty surveyed the spectacle before her with righteous
+indignation visible in every line of her face. The arrangement
+which bound her daughter to give Bennydeck his final reply on
+that day had been well known to her when she left the hotel in
+the morning. The conclusion at which she arrived, on returning at
+night, was expressed with Roman brevity and Roman eloquence in
+four words:
+
+"Oh, the poor Captain!"
+
+Catherine suddenly looked up.
+
+"I knew it," Mrs. Presty continued, with her sternest emphasis;
+"I see what you have done, in your face. You have refused
+Bennydeck."
+
+"God forgive me, I have been wicked enough to accept him!"
+
+Hearing this, some mothers might have made apologies; and other
+mothers might have asked what that penitential reply could
+possibly mean. Mrs. Presty was no matron of the ordinary type.
+She welcomed the good news, without taking the smallest notice of
+the expression of self-reproach which had accompanied it.
+
+"My dear child, accept the congratulations of your fond old
+mother. I have never been one of the kissing sort (I mean of
+course where women are concerned); but this is an occasion which
+justifies something quite out of the common way. Come and kiss
+me."
+
+Catherine took no notice of that outburst of maternal love.
+
+"I have forgotten everything that I ought to have remembered,"
+she said. "In my vanity, in my weakness, in my selfish enjoyment
+of the passing moment, I have been too supremely happy even to
+think of the trials of my past life, and of the false position
+in which they have placed me toward a man, whom I ought to be
+ashamed to deceive. I have only been recalled to a sense of duty,
+I might almost say to a sense of decency, by my poor little child.
+If Kitty had not reminded me of her father--"
+
+Mrs. Presty dropped into a chair: she was really frightened. Her
+fat cheeks trembled like a jelly on a dish that is suddenly
+moved.
+
+"Has that man been here?" she asked.
+
+"What man?"
+
+"The man who may break off your marriage if he meets with the
+Captain. Has Herbert Linley been here?"
+
+"Certainly not. The one person associated with my troubles whom I
+have seen to-day is Sydney Westerfield."
+
+Mrs. Presty bounced out of her chair. "You--have seen--Sydney
+Westerfield?" she repeated with emphatic pauses which expressed
+amazement tempered by unbelief.
+
+"Yes; I have seen her."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In the garden."
+
+"And spoken to her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Mrs. Presty raised her eyes to the ceiling. Whether she expected
+our old friend "the recording angel" to take down the questions
+and answers that had just passed, or whether she was only waiting
+to see the hotel that held her daughter collapse under a sense of
+moral responsibility, it is not possible to decide. After an
+awful pause, the old lady remembered that she had something more
+to say--and said it.
+
+"I make no remark, Catherine; I don't even want to know what you
+and Miss Westerfield said to each other. At the same time, as a
+matter of convenience to myself, I wish to ascertain whether I
+must leave this hotel or not. The same house doesn't hold that
+woman and ME. Has she gone?"
+
+"She has gone."
+
+Mrs. Presty looked round the room. "And taken Kitty with her?"
+she asked.
+
+"Don't speak of Kitty!" Catherine cried in the greatest distress.
+"I have had to keep the poor innocent affectionate child apart
+from Miss Westerfield by force. My heart aches when I think of
+it."
+
+"I'm not surprised, Catherine. My granddaughter has been brought
+up on the modern system. Children are all little angels--no
+punishments--only gentle remonstrance--'Don't be naughty, dear,
+because you will make poor mamma unhappy.' And then, mamma
+grieves over it and wonders over it, when she finds her little
+angel disobedient. What a fatal system of education! All my
+success in life; every quality that endeared me to your father
+and Mr. Presty; every social charm that has made me the idol of
+society, I attribute entirely to judicious correction in early
+life, applied freely with the open hand. We will change the
+subject. Where is dear Bennydeck? I want to congratulate him on
+his approaching marriage." She looked hard at her daughter, and
+mentally added: "He'll live to regret it!"
+
+Catherine knew nothing of the Captain's movements. "Like you,"
+she told her mother, "I have something to say to him, and I don't
+know where he is."
+
+Mrs. Presty still kept her eyes fixed on her daughter. Nobody,
+observing Catherine's face, and judging also by the tone of her
+voice, would have supposed that she was alluding to the man whose
+irresistible attractions had won her. She looked ill at ease, and
+she spoke sadly.
+
+"You don't seem to be in good spirits, my dear," Mrs. Presty
+gently suggested. "No lovers' quarrel already, I hope?"
+
+"Nothing of the kind."
+
+"Can I be of any use to you?"
+
+"You might be of the greatest use. But I know only too well, you
+would refuse."
+
+Thus far, Mrs. Presty had been animated by curiosity. She began
+now to feel vaguely alarmed. "After all that I have done for
+you," she answered, "I don't think you ought to say that. Why
+should I refuse?"
+
+Catherine hesitated.
+
+Her mother persisted in pressing her. "Has it anything to do with
+Captain Bennydeck?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+Catherine roused her courage.
+
+"You know what it is as well as I do," she said. "Captain
+Bennydeck believes that I am free to marry him because I am a
+widow. You might help me to tell him the truth."
+
+"What!!!"
+
+That exclamation of horror and astonishment was loud enough to
+have been heard in the garden. If Mrs. Presty's hair had been all
+her own, it must have been hair that stood on end.
+
+Catherine quietly rose. "We won't discuss it," she said, with
+resignation. "I knew you would refuse me." She approached the
+door. Her mother got up and resolutely stood in the way. "Before
+you commit an act of downright madness," Mrs. Presty said, "I
+mean to try if I can stop you. Go back to your chair."
+
+Catherine refused.
+
+"I know how it will end," she answered; "and the sooner it ends
+the better. You will find that I am quite as determined as you
+are. A man who loves me as _he_ loves me, is a man whom I refuse
+to deceive."
+
+"Let's have it out plainly," Mrs. Presty insisted. "He believes
+your first marriage has been dissolved by death. Do you mean to
+tell him that it has been dissolved by Divorce?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"What right has he to know it?"
+
+"A right that is not to be denied. A wife must have no secrets
+from her husband."
+
+Mrs. Presty hit back smartly.
+
+"You're not his wife yet. Wait till you are married."
+
+"Never! Who but a wretch would marry an honest man under false
+pretenses?"
+
+"I deny the false pretenses! You talk as if you were an impostor.
+Are you, or are you not, the accomplished lady who has charmed
+him? Are you, or are you not, the beautiful woman whom he loves?
+There isn't a stain on your reputation. In every respect you are
+the wife he wants and the wife who is worthy of him. And you are
+cruel enough to disturb the poor man about a matter that doesn't
+concern him! you are fool enough to raise doubts of you in his
+mind, and give him a reproach to cast in your teeth the first
+time you do anything that happens to offend him! Any woman--I
+don't care who she may be--might envy the home that's waiting for
+you and your child, if you're wise enough to hold your tongue.
+Upon my word, Catherine, I am ashamed of you. Have you no
+principles?"
+
+She really meant it! The purely selfish considerations which she
+urged on her daughter were so many undeniable virtues in Mrs.
+Presty's estimation. She took the highest moral ground, and stood
+up and crowed on it, with a pride in her own principles which the
+Primate of all England might have envied.
+
+But Catherine's rare resolution held as firm as ever. She got a
+little nearer to the door. "Good-night, mamma," was the only
+reply she made.
+
+"Is that all you have to say to me?"
+
+"I am tired, and I must rest. Please let me go."
+
+Mrs. Presty threw open the door with a bang.
+
+"You refuse to take my advice?" she said. "Oh, very well, have
+your own way! You are sure to prosper in the end. These are the
+days of exhibitions and gold medals. If there is ever an
+exhibition of idiots at large, I know who might win the prize."
+
+Catherine was accustomed to preserve her respect for her mother
+under difficulties; but this was far more than her sense of
+filial duty could successfully endure.
+
+"I only wish I had never taken your advice," she answered. "Many
+a miserable moment would have been spared me, if I had always
+done what I am doing now. You have been the evil genius of my
+life since Miss Westerfield first came into our house."
+
+She passed through the open doorway--stopped--and came back
+again. "I didn't mean to offend you, mamma--but you do say such
+irritating things. Good-night."
+
+Not a word of reply acknowledged that kindly-meant apology. Mrs.
+Presty--vivacious Mrs. Presty of the indomitable spirit and the
+ready tongue--was petrified. She, the guardian angel of the
+family, whose experience, devotion, and sound sense had steered
+Catherine through difficulties and dangers which must have
+otherwise ended in utter domestic shipwreck--she, the model
+mother--had been stigmatized as the evil genius of her daughter's
+life by no less a person than that daughter herself! What was to
+be said? What was to be done? What terrible and unexampled course
+of action should be taken after such an insult as this? Mrs.
+Presty stood helpless in the middle of the room, and asked
+herself these questions, and waited and wondered and found no answer.
+
+An interval passed. There was a knock at the door. A waiter
+appeared. He said: "A gentleman to see Mrs. Norman."
+
+The gentleman entered the room and revealed himself.
+
+Herbert Linley!
+
+
+
+Chapter XLVIII.
+
+
+Be Careful!
+
+
+The divorced husband looked at his mother-in-law without making
+the slightest sacrifice to the claims of politeness. He neither
+offered his hand nor made his bow. His frowning eyebrows, his
+flushed face, betrayed the anger that was consuming him.
+
+"I want to see Catherine," he said.
+
+This deliberate rudeness proved to be the very stimulant that was
+required to restore Mrs. Presty to herself. The smile that always
+meant mischief made its threatening appearance on the old lady's
+face.
+
+"What sort of company have you been keeping since I last saw
+you?" she began.
+
+"What have you got to do with the company I keep?"
+
+"Nothing whatever, I am happy to say. I was merely wondering
+whether you have been traveling lately in the south part of
+Africa, and have lived exclusively in the society of Hottentots.
+The only other explanation of your behavior is that I have been
+so unfortunate as to offend you. But it seems improbable--I am
+not your wife."
+
+"Thank God for that!"
+
+"Thank God, as you say. But I should really be glad (as a mere
+matter of curiosity) to know what your extraordinary conduct
+means. You present yourself in this room uninvited, you find a
+lady here, and you behave as if you had come into a shop and
+wanted to ask the price of something. Let me give you a lesson in
+good manners. Observe: I receive you with a bow, and I say: How
+do you do, Mr. Linley? Do you understand me?"
+
+"I don't want to understand you--I want to see Catherine."
+
+"Who is Catherine?"
+
+"You know as well as I do--your daughter."
+
+"My daughter, sir, is a stranger to you. We will speak of her, if
+you please, by the name--the illustrious name--which she
+inherited at her birth. You wish to see Mrs. Norman?"
+
+"Call her what you like. I have a word to say to her, and I mean
+to say it."
+
+"No, Mr. Linley, you won't say it."
+
+"We'll see about that! Where is she?"
+
+"My daughter is not well."
+
+"Well or ill, I shan't keep her long."
+
+"My daughter has retired to her room."
+
+"Where is her room?"
+
+Mrs. Presty moved to the fireplace, and laid her hand on the
+bell.
+
+"Are you aware that this house is a hotel?" she asked.
+
+"It doesn't matter to me what it is."
+
+"Oh yes, it does. A hotel keeps waiters. A hotel, when it is as
+large as this, has a policeman in attendance. Must I ring?"
+
+The choice between giving way to Mrs. Presty, or being
+disgracefully dismissed, was placed plainly before him. Herbert's
+life had been the life of a gentleman; he knew that he had
+forgotten himself; it was impossible that he could hesitate.
+
+"I won't trouble you to ring," he said; "and I will beg your
+pardon for having allowed my temper to get the better of me. At
+the same time it ought to be remembered, I think, in my favor,
+that I have had some provocation."
+
+"I don't agree with you," Mrs. Presty answered. She was deaf to
+any appeal for mercy from Herbert Linley. "As to provocation,"
+she added, returning to her chair without asking him to be
+seated, "when you apply that word to yourself, you insult my
+daughter and me. _You_ provoked? Oh, heavens!"
+
+"You wouldn't say that," he urged, speaking with marked restraint
+of tone and manner, "if you knew what I have had to endure--"
+
+Mrs. Presty suddenly looked toward the door. "Wait a minute," she
+said; "I think I hear somebody coming in."
+
+In the silence that followed, footsteps were audible outside--not
+approaching the door, however, but retiring from it. Mrs. Presty
+had apparently been mistaken. "Yes?" she said resignedly,
+permitting Herbert to proceed.
+
+He really had something to say for himself, and he said it with
+sufficient moderation. That he had been guilty of serious
+offenses he made no attempt to deny; but he pleaded that he had
+not escaped without justly suffering for what he had done. He had
+been entirely in the wrong when he threatened to take the child
+away from her mother by force of law; but had he not been
+punished when his wife obtained her Divorce, and separated him
+from his little daughter as well as from herself? (No: Mrs.
+Presty failed to see it; if anybody had suffered by the Divorce,
+the victim was her injured daughter.) Still patient, Herbert did
+not deny the injury; he only submitted once more that he had
+suffered his punishment. Whether his life with Sydney Westerfield
+had or had not been a happy one, he must decline to say; he would
+only declare that it had come to an end. She had left him. Yes!
+she had left him forever. He had no wish to persuade her to
+return to their guilty life; they were both penitent, they were
+both ashamed of it. But she had gone away without the provision
+which he was bound in honor to offer to her.
+
+"She is friendless; she may be in a state of poverty that I
+tremble to think of," Herbert declared. "Is there nothing to
+plead for me in such anxiety as I am suffering now?" Mrs. Presty
+stopped him there; she had heard enough of Sydney already.
+
+"I see nothing to be gained," she said, "by dwelling on the past;
+and I should be glad to know why you have come to this place
+to-night."
+
+"I have come to see Kitty."
+
+"Quite out of the question."
+
+"Don't tell me that, Mrs. Presty! I'm one of the wretchedest men
+living, and I ask for the consolation of seeing my child. Kitty
+hasn't forgotten me yet, I know. Her mother can't be so cruel as
+to refuse. She shall fix her own time, and send me away when she
+likes; I'll submit to anything. Will you ask Catherine to let me
+see Kitty?"
+
+"I can't do it."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"For private reasons."
+
+"What reasons?"
+
+"For reasons into which you have no right to inquire."
+
+He got up from his chair. His face presented the same expression
+which Mrs. Presty had seen on it when he first entered the room.
+
+"When I came in here," he said, "I wished to be certain of one
+thing. Your prevarication has told me what I wanted to know. The
+newspapers had Catherine's own authority for it, Mrs. Presty,
+when they called her widow. I know now why my brother, who never
+deceived me before, has deceived me about this. I understand the
+part that your daughter has been playing--and I am as certain as
+if I had heard it, of the devilish lie that one of you--perhaps
+both of you--must have told my poor child. No, no; I had better
+not see Catherine. Many a man has killed his wife, and has not
+had such good reason for doing it as I have. You are quite right
+to keep me away from her."
+
+He stopped--and looked suddenly toward the door. "I hear her," he
+cried, "She's coming in!"
+
+The footsteps outside were audible once more. This time, they
+were approaching; they were close to the door. Herbert drew back
+from it. Looking round to see that he was out of the way, Mrs.
+Presty rushed forward--tore open the door in terror of what might
+happen--and admitted Captain Bennydeck.
+
+
+
+Chapter XLIX.
+
+
+Keep the Secret.
+
+
+The Captain's attention was first attracted by the visitor whom
+he found in the room. He bowed to the stranger; but the first
+impression produced on him did not appear to have been of the
+favorable kind, when he turned next to Mrs. Presty.
+
+Observing that she was agitated, he made the customary apologies,
+expressing his regret if he had been so unfortunate as to commit
+an intrusion. Trusting in the good sense and good breeding which
+distinguished him on other occasions, Mrs. Presty anticipated
+that he would see the propriety of leaving her alone again with
+the person whom he had found in her company. To her dismay he
+remained in the room; and, worse still, he noticed her daughter's
+absence, and asked if there was any serious cause for it.
+
+For the moment, Mrs. Presty was unable to reply. Her presence of
+mind--or, to put it more correctly, her ready audacity--deserted
+her, when she saw Catherine's husband that had been, and
+Catherine's husband that was to be, meeting as strangers, and but
+too likely to discover each other.
+
+In all her experience she had never been placed in such a
+position of embarrassment as the position in which she found
+herself now. The sense of honor which had prompted Catherine's
+resolution to make Bennydeck acquainted with the catastrophe of
+married life, might plead her excuse in the estimation of a man
+devotedly attached to her. But if the Captain was first informed
+that he had been deceived by a person who was a perfect stranger
+to him, what hope could be entertained of his still holding
+himself bound by his marriage engagement? It was even possible
+that distrust had been already excited in his mind. He must
+certainly have heard a man's voice raised in anger when he
+approached the door--and he was now observing that man with an
+air of curiosity which was already assuming the appearance of
+distrust. That Herbert, on his side, resented the Captain's
+critical examination of him was plainly visible in his face.
+After a glance at Bennydeck, he asked Mrs. Presty "who that
+gentleman was."
+
+"I may be mistaken," he added; "but I thought your friend looked
+at me just now as if he knew me."
+
+"I have met you, sir, before this." The Captain made the reply
+with a courteous composure of tone and manner which apparently
+reminded Herbert of the claims of politeness.
+
+"May I ask where I had the honor of seeing you?" he inquired.
+
+"We passed each other in the hall of the hotel at Sandyseal. You
+had a young woman with you."
+
+"Your memory is a better one than mine, sir. I fail to remember
+the circumstance to which you refer."
+
+Bennydeck let the matter rest there. Struck by the remarkable
+appearance of embarrassment in Mrs. Presty's manner--and feeling
+(in spite of Herbert's politeness of language) increased distrust
+of the man whom he had found visiting her--he thought it might
+not be amiss to hint that she could rely on him in case of
+necessity. "I am afraid I have interrupted a confidential
+interview," he began; "and I ought perhaps to explain--"
+
+Mrs. Presty listened absently; preoccupied by the fear that
+Herbert would provoke a dangerous disclosure, and by the
+difficulty of discovering a means of preventing it. She
+interrupted the Captain.
+
+"Excuse me for one moment; I have a word to say to this
+gentleman." Bennydeck immediately drew back, and Mrs. Presty
+lowered her voice. "If you wish to see Kitty," she resumed,
+attacking Herbert on his weak side, "it depends entirely on your
+discretion."
+
+"What do you mean by discretion?"
+
+"Be careful not to speak of our family troubles--and I promise
+you shall see Kitty. That is what I mean."
+
+Herbert declined to say whether he would be careful or not. He
+was determined to find out, first, with what purpose Bennydeck
+had entered the room. "The gentleman was about to explain himself
+to you," he said to Mrs. Presty. "Why don't you give him the
+opportunity?"
+
+She had no choice but to submit--in appearance at least. Never
+had she hated Herbert as she hated him at that moment. The
+Captain went on with his explanation. He had his reasons (he
+said) for hesitating, in the first instance, to present himself
+uninvited, and he accordingly retired. On second thoughts,
+however, he had returned, in the hope--
+
+"In the hope," Herbert interposed, "of seeing Mrs. Presty's
+daughter?"
+
+"That was one of my motives," Bennydeck answered.
+
+"Is it indiscreet to inquire what the other motive was?"
+
+"Not at all. I heard a stranger's voice, speaking in a tone
+which, to say the least of it, is not customary in a lady's room
+and I thought--"
+
+Herbert interrupted him again. "And you thought your interference
+might be welcome to the lady! Am I right?"
+
+"Quite right."
+
+"Am I making another lucky guess if I suppose myself to be
+speaking to Captain Bennydeck?"
+
+"I shall be glad to hear, sir, how you have arrived at the
+knowledge of my name."
+
+"Shall we say, Captain, that I have arrived at it by instinct?"
+
+His face, as he made that reply, alarmed Mrs. Presty. She cast a
+look at him, partly of entreaty, partly of warning. No effect was
+produced by the look. He continued, in a tone of ironical
+compliment: "You must pay the penalty of being a public
+character. Your marriage is announced in the newspapers."
+
+"I seldom read the newspapers."
+
+"Ah, indeed? Perhaps the report is not true? As you don't read
+the newspapers, allow me to repeat it. You are engaged to marry
+the 'beautiful widow, Mrs. Norman.' I think I quote those last
+words correctly?"
+
+Mrs. Presty suddenly got up. With an inscrutable face that told
+no tales, she advanced to the door. Herbert's insane jealousy of
+the man who was about to become Catherine's husband had led him
+into a serious error; he had driven Catherine's mother to
+desperation. In that state of mind she recovered her lost
+audacity, as a matter of course. Opening the door, she turned
+round to the two men, with a magnificent impudence of manner
+which in her happiest moments she had never surpassed.
+
+"I am sorry to interrupt this interesting conversation," she
+said; "but I have stupidly forgotten one of my domestic duties.
+You will allow me to return, and listen with renewed pleasure,
+when my household business is off my mind. I shall hope to find
+you both more polite to each other than ever when I come back."
+She was in such a frenzy of suppressed rage that she actually
+kissed her hand to them as she left the room!
+
+Bennydeck looked after her, convinced that some sinister purpose
+was concealed under Mrs. Presty's false excuses, and wholly
+unable to imagine what that purpose might be. Herbert still
+persisted in trying to force a quarrel on the Captain.
+
+"As I remarked just now," he proceeded, "newspaper reports are
+not always to be trusted. Do you seriously mean, my dear sir, to
+marry Mrs. Norman?"
+
+"I look forward to that honor and that happiness. But I am at a
+loss to know how it interests you."
+
+"In that case allow me to enlighten you. My name is Herbert
+Linley."
+
+He had held his name in reserve, feeling certain of the effect
+which he would produce when he pronounced it. The result took him
+completely by surprise. Not the slightest appearance of agitation
+showed itself in Bennydeck's manner. On the contrary, he looked
+as if there was something that interested him in the discovery of
+the name.
+
+"You are probably related to a friend of mine?" he said, quietly.
+
+"Who is your friend?"
+
+"Mr. Randal Linley."
+
+Herbert was entirely unprepared for this discovery. Once more,
+the Captain had got the best of it.
+
+"Are you and Randal Linley intimate friends?" he inquired, as
+soon as he had recovered himself.
+
+"Most intimate."
+
+"It's strange that he should never have mentioned me, on any
+occasion when you and he were together."
+
+"It does indeed seem strange."
+
+Herbert paused. His brother's keen sense of the disgrace that he
+had inflicted on the family recurred to his memory. He began to
+understand Randal's otherwise unaccountable silence.
+
+"Are you nearly related to Mr. Randal Linley?" the Captain asked.
+
+"I am his elder brother."
+
+Ignorant on his part of the family disgrace, Bennydeck heard that
+reply with amazement. From his point of view, it was impossible
+to account for Randal's silence.
+
+"Will you think me very inquisitive," Herbert resumed, "if I ask
+whether my brother approves of your marriage?"
+
+There was a change in his tone, as he put that question which
+warned Bennydeck to be on his guard. "I have not yet consulted my
+friend's opinion," he answered, shortly.
+
+Herbert threw off the mask. "In the meantime, you shall have my
+opinion," he said. "Your marriage is a crime--and I mean to
+prevent it."
+
+The Captain left his chair, and sternly faced the man who had
+spoken those insolent words.
+
+"Are you mad?" he asked.
+
+Herbert was on the point of declaring himself to have been
+Catherine's husband, until the law dissolved their marriage--when
+a waiter came in and approached him with a message. "You are
+wanted immediately, sir."
+
+"Who wants me?"
+
+"A person outside, sir. It's a serious matter--there is not a
+moment to lose."
+
+Herbert turned to the Captain. "I must have your promise to wait
+for me," he said, "or I don't leave the room."
+
+"Make your mind easy. I shall not stir from this place till you
+have explained yourself," was the firm reply.
+
+The servant led the way out. He crossed the passage, and opened
+the door of a waiting-room. Herbert passed in--and found himself
+face to face with his divorced wife.
+
+
+
+Chapter L.
+
+
+Forgiveness to the Injured Doth Belong.
+
+
+Without one word of explanation, Catherine stepped up to him, and
+spoke first.
+
+"Answer me this," she said--"have you told Captain Bennydeck who
+I am?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+The shortest possible reply was the only reply that he could
+make, in the moment when he first looked at her.
+
+She was not the same woman whom he had last seen at Sandyseal,
+returning for her lost book. The agitation produced by that
+unexpected meeting had turned her pale; the overpowering sense of
+injury had hardened and aged her face. This time, she was
+prepared to see him; this time, she was conscious of a resolution
+that raised her in her own estimation. Her clear blue eyes
+glittered as she looked at him, the bright color glowed in her
+cheeks; he was literally dazzled by her beauty.
+
+"In the past time, which we both remember," she resumed, "you
+once said that I was the most truthful woman you had ever known.
+Have I done anything to disturb that part of your old faith in
+me?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+She went on: "Before you entered this house, I had determined to
+tell Captain Bennydeck what you have not told him yet. When I say
+that, do you believe me?"
+
+If he had been able to look away from her, he might have foreseen
+what was coming; and he would have remembered that his triumph
+over the Captain was still incomplete. But his eyes were riveted
+on her face; his tenderest memories of her were pleading with
+him. He answered as a docile child might have answered.
+
+"I do believe you."
+
+She took a letter from her bosom; and, showing it, begged him to
+remark that it was not closed.
+
+"I was in my bedroom writing," she said, "When my mother came to
+me and told me that you and Captain Bennydeck had met in my
+sitting-room. She dreaded a quarrel and an exposure, and she
+urged me to go downstairs and insist on sending you away--or
+permit her to do so, if I could not prevail on myself to follow
+her advice. I refused to allow the shameful dismissal of a man
+who had once had his claim on my respect. The only alternative
+that I could see was to speak with you here, in private, as we
+are speaking now. My mother undertook to manage this for me; she
+saw the servant, and gave him the message which you received.
+Where is Captain Bennydeck now?"
+
+"He is waiting in the sitting-room."
+
+"Waiting for you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She considered a little before she said her next words.
+
+"I have brought with me what I was writing in my own room," she
+resumed, "wishing to show it to you. Will you read it?"
+
+She offered the letter to him. He hesitated. "Is it addressed to
+me?" he asked.
+
+"It is addressed to Captain Bennydeck," she answered.
+
+The jealousy that still rankled in his mind--jealousy that he had
+no more lawful or reasonable claim to feel than if he had been a
+stranger--urged him to assume an indifference which he was far
+from feeling. He begged that Catherine would accept his excuses.
+
+She refused to excuse him.
+
+"Before you decide," she said, "you ought at least to know why I
+have written to Captain Bennydeck, instead of speaking to him as
+I had proposed. My heart failed me when I thought of the distress
+that he might feel--and, perhaps of the contempt of myself which,
+good and gentle as he is, he might not be able to disguise. My
+letter tells him the truth, without concealment. I am obliged to
+speak of the manner in which you have treated me, and of the
+circumstances which forced me into acts of deception that I now
+bitterly regret. I have tried not to misrepresent you; I have
+been anxious to do you no wrong. It is for you, not for me, to
+say if I have succeeded. Once more, will you read my letter?"
+
+The sad self-possession, the quiet dignity with which she spoke,
+appealed to his memory of the pardon that she had so generously
+granted, while he and Sydney Westerfield were still guiltless of
+the injury inflicted on her at a later time. Silently he took the
+letter from her, and read it.
+
+She kept her face turned away from him and from the light. The
+effort to be still calm and reasonable--to suffer the heart-ache,
+and not to let the suffering be seen--made cruel demands on the
+self-betraying nature of a woman possessed by strong emotion.
+There was a moment when she heard him sigh while he was reading.
+She looked round at him, and instantly looked away again.
+
+He rose and approached her; he held out the letter in one hand,
+and pointed to it with the other. Twice he attempted to speak.
+Twice the influence of the letter unmanned him.
+
+It was a hard struggle, but it was for her sake: he mastered his
+weakness, and forced his trembling voice to submit to his will.
+
+"Is the man whom you are going to marry worthy of _this?_" he
+asked, still pointing to the letter.
+
+She answered, firmly: "More than worthy of it."
+
+"Marry him, Catherine--and forget Me."
+
+The great heart that he had so sorely wounded pitied him, forgave
+him, answered him with a burst of tears. She held out one
+imploring hand.
+
+His lips touched it--he was gone.
+
+
+
+Chapter LI.
+
+
+Dum Spiro, Spero.
+
+
+Brisk and smiling, Mrs. Presty presented herself in the
+waiting-room. "We have got rid of our enemy!" she announced, "I
+looked out of the window and saw him leaving the hotel." She
+paused, struck with the deep dejection expressed in her
+daughter's attitude. "Catherine!" she exclaimed, "I tell you
+Herbert has gone, and you look as if you regretted it! Is there
+anything wrong? Did my message fail to bring him here?"
+
+"No."
+
+"He was bent on mischief when I saw him last. Has he told
+Bennydeck of the Divorce?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Thank Heaven for that! There is no one to be afraid of now.
+Where is the Captain?"
+
+"He is still in the sitting-room."
+
+"Why don't you go to him?"
+
+"I daren't!"
+
+"Shall I go?"
+
+"Yes--and give him this."
+
+Mrs. Presty took the letter. "You mean, tear it up," she said,
+"and quite right, too."
+
+"No; I mean what l say."
+
+"My dear child, if you have any regard for yourself, if you have
+any regard for me, don't ask me to give Bennydeck this mad
+letter! You won't hear reason? You still insist on it?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"If Kitty ever behaves to you, Catherine, as you have behaved to
+me--you will have richly deserved it. Oh, if you were only a
+child again, I'd beat it out of you--I would!"
+
+With that outburst of temper, she took the letter to Bennydeck.
+In less than a minute she returned, a tamed woman. "He frightens
+me," she said.
+
+"Is he angry?"
+
+"No--and that is the worst of it. When men are angry, I am never
+afraid of them. He's quiet, too quiet. He said: 'I'm waiting for
+Mr. Herbert Linley; where is he?' I said. 'He has left the
+hotel.' He said: 'What does that mean?' I handed the letter to
+him. 'Perhaps this will explain,' I said. He looked at the
+address, and at once recognized your handwriting. 'Why does she
+write to me when we are both in the same house? Why doesn't she
+speak to me?' I pointed to the letter. He wouldn't look at it; he
+looked straight at me. 'There's some mystery here,' he said; 'I'm
+a plain man, I don't like mysteries. Mr. Linley had something to
+say to me, when the message interrupted him. Who sent the
+message? Do you know?' If there is a woman living, Catherine, who
+would have told the truth, in such a position as mine was at that
+moment, I should like to have her photograph. I said I didn't
+know--and I saw he suspected me of deceiving him. Those kind eyes
+of his--you wouldn't believe it of them!--looked me through and
+through. 'I won't detain you any longer,' he said. I'm not easily
+daunted, as you know--the relief it was to me to get away from
+him is not to be told in words. What do you think I heard when I
+got into the passage? I heard him turn the key of the door. He's
+locked in, my dear; he's locked in! We are too near him here.
+Come upstairs."
+
+Catherine refused. "I ought to be near him," she said, hopefully;
+"he may wish to see me."
+
+Her mother reminded her that the waiting-room was a public room,
+and might be wanted.
+
+"Let's go into the garden," Mrs. Presty proposed. "We can tell
+the servant who waits on us where we may be found."
+
+Catherine yielded. Mrs. Presty's excitement found its overflow in
+talking perpetually. Her daughter had nothing to say, and cared
+nothing where they went; all outward manifestation of life in
+her seemed to be suspended at that terrible time of expectation.
+They wandered here and there, in the quietest part of the
+grounds. Half an hour passed--and no message was received. The
+hotel clock struck the hour--and still nothing happened.
+
+"I can walk no longer," Catherine said. She dropped on one of the
+garden-chairs, holding by her mother's hand. "Go to him, for
+God's sake!" she entreated. "I can endure it no longer."
+
+Mrs. Presty--even bold Mrs. Presty--was afraid to face him again.
+"He's fond of the child," she suggested; "let's send Kitty."
+
+Some little girls were at play close by who knew where Kitty was
+to be found. In a few minutes more they brought her back with
+them. Mrs. Presty gave the child her instructions, and sent her
+away proud of her errand, and delighted at the prospect of
+visiting the Captain by herself, as if she "was a grown-up lady."
+
+This time the period of suspense was soon at an end. Kitty came
+running back. "It's lucky you sent me," she declared. "He
+wouldn't have opened the door to anybody else--he said so
+himself."
+
+"Did you knock softly, as I told you?" Mrs. Presty asked.
+
+"No, grandmamma, I forgot that. I tried to open the door. He
+called out not to disturb him. I said, 'It's only me,' and he
+opened the door directly. What makes him look so pale, mamma? Is
+he ill?"
+
+"Perhaps he feels the heat," Mrs. Presty suggested, judiciously.
+
+"He said, 'Dear little Kitty,' and he caught me up in his arms
+and kissed me. When he sat down again he took me on his knee, and
+he asked if I was fond of him, and I said, 'Yes, I am,' and he
+kissed me again, and he asked if I had come to stay with him and
+keep him company. I forgot what you wanted me to say," Kitty
+acknowledged, addressing Mrs. Presty; "so I made it up out of my
+own head."
+
+"What did you tell him?"
+
+"I told him, mamma was as fond of him as I was, and I said, 'We
+will both keep you company.' He put me down on the floor, and he
+got up and went to the window and looked out. I told him that
+wasn't the way to find her, and I said, 'I know where she is;
+I'll go and fetch her.' He's an obstinate man, our nice Captain.
+He wouldn't come away from the window. I said, 'You wish to see
+mamma, don't you?' And he said 'Yes.' 'You mustn't lock the door
+again,' I told him, 'she won't like that'; and what do you think
+he said? He said 'Good-by, Kitty!' Wasn't it funny? He didn't
+seem to know what he was talking about. If you ask my opinion,
+mamma, I think the sooner you go to him the better." Catherine
+hesitated. Mrs. Presty on one side, and Kitty on the other, led
+her between them into the house.
+
+
+
+Chapter LII.
+
+
+L'homme propose, et Dieu dispose.
+
+
+Captain Bennydeck met Catherine and her child at the open door of
+the room. Mrs. Presty, stopping a few paces behind them, waited
+in the passage; eager to see what the Captain's face might tell
+her. It told her nothing.
+
+But Catherine saw a change in him. There was something in his
+manner unnaturally passive and subdued. It suggested the idea of
+a man whose mind had been forced into an effort of self-control
+which had exhausted its power, and had allowed the signs of
+depression and fatigue to find their way to the surface. The
+Captain was quiet, the Captain was kind; neither by word nor look
+did he warn Catherine that the continuity of their intimacy was
+in danger of being broken--and yet, her spirits sank, when they
+met at the open door.
+
+He led her to a chair, and said she had come to him at a time
+when he especially wished to speak with her. Kitty asked if she
+might remain with them. He put his hand caressingly on her head;
+"No, my dear, not now."
+
+The child eyed him for a moment, conscious of something which she
+had never noticed in him before, and puzzled by the discovery.
+She walked back, cowed and silent, to the door. He followed her
+and spoke to Mrs. Presty.
+
+"Take your grandchild into the garden; we will join you there in
+a little while. Good-by for the present, Kitty."
+
+Kitty said good-by mechanically--like a dull child repeating a
+lesson. Her grandmother led her away in silence.
+
+Bennydeck closed the door and seated himself by Catherine.
+
+"I thank you for your letter," he said. "If such a thing is
+possible, it has given me a higher opinion of you than any
+opinion that I have held yet."
+
+She looked at him with a feeling of surprise, so sudden and so
+overwhelming that she was at a loss how to reply. The last words
+which she expected to hear from him, when he alluded to her
+confession, were the words that had just passed his lips.
+
+"You have owned to faults that you have committed, and deceptions
+that you have sanctioned," he went on--"with nothing to gain, and
+everything to lose, by telling the truth. Who but a good woman
+would have done that?"
+
+There was a deeper feeling in him than he had ventured to
+express. It betrayed itself by a momentary trembling in his
+voice. Catherine drew a little closer to him.
+
+"You don't know how you surprise me, how you relieve me," she
+said, warmly--and pressed his hand. In the eagerness of her
+gratitude, in the gladness that had revived her sinking heart,
+she failed to feel that the pressure was not returned.
+
+"What have I said to surprise you?" he asked. "What anxiety have
+I relieved, without knowing it?"
+
+"I was afraid you would despise me."
+
+"Why should I despise you?"
+
+"Have I not gained your good opinion under false pretenses? Have
+I not allowed you to admire me and to love me without telling you
+that there was anything in my past life which I have reason to
+regret? Even now, I can hardly realize that you excuse and
+forgive me; you, who have read the confession of my worst faults;
+you, who know the shocking inconsistencies of my character--"
+
+"Say at once," he answered, "that I know you to be a mortal
+creature. Is there any human character, even the noblest, that is
+always consistently good?"
+
+"One reads of them sometimes," she suggested, "in books."
+
+"Yes," he said. "In the worst books you could possibly read--the
+only really immoral books written in our time."
+
+"Why are they immoral?"
+
+"For this plain reason, that they deliberately pervert the truth.
+Clap-trap, you innocent creature, to catch foolish readers! When
+do these consistently good people appear in the life around us,
+the life that we all see? Never! Are the best mortals that ever
+lived above the reach of temptation to do ill, and are they
+always too good to yield to it? How does the Lord's Prayer
+instruct humanity? It commands us all, without exception, to pray
+that we may not be led into temptation. You have been led into
+temptation. In other words, you are a human being. All that a
+human being could do you have done--you have repented and
+confessed. Don't I know how you have suffered and how you have
+been tried! Why, what a mean Pharisee I should be if I presumed
+to despise you!"
+
+She looked at him proudly and gratefully; she lifted her arm as
+if to thank him by an embrace, and suddenly let it drop again at
+her side.
+
+"Am I tormenting myself without cause?" she said. "Or is there
+something that looks like sorrow, showing itself to me in your
+face?"
+
+"You see the bitterest sorrow that I have felt in all my sad
+life."
+
+"Is it sorrow for me?"
+
+"No. Sorrow for myself."
+
+"Has it come to you through me? Is it my fault?"
+
+"It is more your misfortune than your fault."
+
+"Then you can feel for me?"
+
+"I can and do."
+
+He had not yet set her at ease.
+
+"I am afraid your sympathy stops somewhere," she said. "Where
+does it stop?"
+
+For the first time, he shrank from directly answering her. "I
+begin to wish I had followed your example," he owned. "It might
+have been better for both of us if I had answered your letter in
+writing."
+
+"Tell me plainly," she cried, "is there something you can't
+forgive?"
+
+"There is something I can't forget."
+
+"What is it? Oh, what is it! When my mother told poor little
+Kitty that her father was dead, are you even more sorry than I am
+that I allowed it? Are you even more ashamed of me than I am of
+myself?"
+
+"No. I regret that you allowed it; but I understand how you were
+led into that error. Your husband's infidelity had shaken his
+hold on your respect for him and your sympathy with him, and had
+so left you without your natural safeguard against Mrs. Presty's
+sophistical reasoning and bad example. But for _that_
+wrong-doing, there is a remedy left. Enlighten your child as you
+have enlightened me; and then--I have no personal motive for
+pleading Mr. Herbert Linley's cause, after what I have seen of
+him--and then, acknowledge the father's claim on the child."
+
+"Do you mean his claim to see her?"
+
+"What else can I mean? Yes! let him see her. Do (God help me, now
+when it's too late!)--do what you ought to have done, on that
+accursed day which will be the blackest day in my calendar, to
+the end of my life."
+
+"What day do you mean?"
+
+"The day when you remembered the law of man, and forgot the law
+of God; the day when you broke the marriage tie, the sacred tie,
+by a Divorce!"
+
+She listened--not conscious now of suspense or fear; she
+listened, with her whole heart in revolt against him.
+
+"You are too cruel!" she declared. "You can feel for me, you can
+understand me, you can pardon me in everything else that I have
+done. But you judge without mercy of the one blameless act of my
+life, since my husband left me--the act that protected a mother
+in the exercise of her rights. Oh, can it be you? Can it be you?"
+
+"It can be," he said, sighing bitterly; "and it is."
+
+"What horrible delusion possesses you? Why do you curse the happy
+day, the blessed day, which saw me safe in the possession of my
+child?"
+
+"For the worst and meanest of reasons," he answered--"a selfish
+reason. Don't suppose that I have spoken of Divorce as one who
+has had occasion to think of it. I have had no occasion to think
+of it; I don't think of it even now. I abhor it because it stands
+between you and me. I loathe it, I curse it because it separates
+us for life."
+
+"Separates us for life? How?"
+
+"Can you ask me?"
+
+"Yes, I do ask you!"
+
+He looked round him. A society of religious persons had visited
+the hotel, and had obtained permission to place a copy of the
+Bible in every room. One of those copies lay on the chimney-piece
+in Catherine's room. Bennydeck brought it to her, and placed it
+on the table near which she was sitting. He turned to the New
+Testament, and opened it at the Gospel of Saint Matthew. With his
+hand on the page, he said:
+
+"I have done my best rightly to understand the duties of a
+Christian. One of those duties, as I interpret them, is to let
+what I believe show itself in what I do. You have seen enough of
+me, I hope, to know (though I have not been forward in speaking
+of it) that I am, to the best of my poor ability, a faithful
+follower of the teachings of Christ. I dare not set my own
+interests and my own happiness above His laws. If I suffer in
+obeying them as I suffer now, I must still submit. They are the
+laws of my life."
+
+"Is it through me that you suffer?"
+
+"It is through you."
+
+"Will you tell me how?"
+
+He had already found the chapter. His tears dropped on it as he
+pointed to the verse.
+
+"Read," he answered, "what the most compassionate of all Teachers
+has said, in the Sermon on the Mount."
+
+She read: "Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth
+adultery."
+
+Another innocent woman, in her place, might have pointed to that
+first part of the verse, which pre-supposes the infidelity of the
+divorced wife, and might have asked if those words applied to
+_her_. This woman, knowing that she had lost him, knew also what
+she owed to herself. She rose in silence, and held out her hand at
+parting.
+
+He paused before he took her hand. "Can you forgive me?" he
+asked.
+
+She said: "I can pity you."
+
+"Can you look back to the day of your marriage? Can you remember
+the words which declared the union between you and your husband
+to be separable only by death? Has he treated you with brutal
+cruelty?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"Has he repented of his sin?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ask your own conscience if there is not a worthier life for you
+and your child than the life that you are leading now." He
+waited, after that appeal to her. The silence remained unbroken.
+"Do not mistake me," he resumed gently. "I am not thinking of the
+calamity that has fallen on me in a spirit of selfish despair--I
+am looking to _your_ future, and I am trying to show you the way
+which leads to hope. Catherine! have you no word more to say to
+me?"
+
+In faint trembling tones she answered him at last:
+
+"You have left me but one word to say. Farewell!"
+
+He drew her to him gently, and kissed her on the forehead. The
+agony in his face was more than she could support; she recoiled
+from it in horror. His last act was devoted to the tranquillity
+of the one woman whom he had loved. He signed to her to leave
+him.
+
+
+Chapter LIII.
+
+
+The Largest Nature, the Longest Love.
+
+
+Mrs. Presty waited in the garden to be joined by her daughter and
+Captain Bennydeck, and waited in vain. It was past her
+grandchild's bedtime; she decided on returning to the house.
+
+"Suppose we look for them in the sitting-room?" Kitty proposed.
+
+"Suppose we wait a moment, before we go in?" her wise grandmother
+advised. "If I hear them talking I shall take you upstairs to
+bed."
+
+"Why?"
+
+Mrs. Presty favored Kitty with a hint relating to the management
+of inquisitive children which might prove useful to her in
+after-life. "When you grow up to be a woman, my dear, beware of
+making the mistake that I have just committed. Never be foolish
+enough to mention your reasons when a child asks, Why?"
+
+"Was that how they treated _you_, grandmamma, when you were a
+child yourself?"
+
+"Of course it was!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+They had reached the sitting-room door by this time. Kitty opened
+it without ceremony and looked in. The room was empty.
+
+Having confided her granddaughter to the nursemaid's care, Mrs.
+Presty knocked at Catherine's bedroom door. "May I come in?"
+
+"Come in directly! Where is Kitty?"
+
+"Susan is putting her to bed."
+
+"Stop it! Kitty mustn't go to bed. No questions. I'll explain
+myself when you come back." There was a wildness in her eyes, and
+a tone of stern command in her voice, which warned her mother to
+set dignity aside, and submit.
+
+"I don't ask what has happened," Mrs. Presty resumed on her
+return. "That letter, that fatal letter to the Captain, has
+justified my worst fears. What in Heaven's name are we to do
+now?"
+
+"We are to leave this hotel," was the instant reply.
+
+"When?"
+
+"To-night."
+
+"Catherine! do you know what time it is?"
+
+"Time enough to catch the last train to London. Don't raise
+objections! If I stay at this place, with associations in every
+part of it which remind me of that unhappy man, I shall go mad!
+The shock I have suffered, the misery, the humiliation--I tell
+you it's more than I can bear. Stay here by yourself if you like;
+I mean to go."
+
+She paced with frantic rapidity up and down the room. Mrs. Presty
+took the only way by which it was possible to calm her. "Compose
+yourself, Catherine, and all that you wish shall be done. I'll
+settle everything with the landlord, and give the maid her
+orders. Sit down by the open window; let the wind blow over you."
+
+The railway service from Sydenham to London is a late service. At
+a few minutes before midnight they were in time for the last
+train. When they left the station, Catherine was calm enough to
+communicate her plans for the future. The nearest hotel to the
+terminus would offer them accommodation for that night. On the
+next day they could find some quiet place in the country--no
+matter where, so long as they were not disturbed. "Give me rest
+and peace, and my mind will be easier," Catherine said. "Let
+nobody know where to find me."
+
+These conditions were strictly observed--with an exception in
+favor of Mr. Sarrazin. While his client's pecuniary affairs were
+still unsettled, the lawyer had his claim to be taken into her
+confidence.
+
+             * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
+
+The next morning found Captain Bennydeck still keeping his rooms
+at Sydenham. The state of his mind presented a complete contrast
+to the state of Catherine's mind. So far from sharing her
+aversion to the personal associations which were connected with
+the hotel, he found his one consolation in visiting the scenes
+which reminded him of the beloved woman whom he had lost. The
+reason for this was not far to seek. His was the largest nature,
+and his had been the most devoted love.
+
+As usual, his letters were forwarded to him from his place of
+residence in London. Those addressed in handwritings that he knew
+were the first that he read. The others he took out with him to
+that sequestered part of the garden in which he had passed the
+happiest hours of his life by Catherine's side.
+
+He had been thinking of her all the morning; he was thinking of
+her now.
+
+His better judgment protested; his accusing conscience warned him
+that he was committing, not only an act of folly but (with his
+religious convictions) an act of sin--and still she held her
+place in his thoughts. The manager had told him of her sudden
+departure from the hotel, and had declared with perfect truth
+that the place of her destination had not been communicated to
+him. Asked if she had left no directions relating to her
+correspondence, he had replied that his instructions were to
+forward all letters to her lawyer. On the point of inquiring next
+for the name and address, Bennydeck's sense of duty and sense of
+shame (roused at last) filled him with a timely contempt for
+himself. In feeling tempted to write to Catherine--in encouraging
+fond thoughts of her among scenes which kept her in his
+memory--he had been false to the very principles to which he had
+appealed at their farewell interview. She had set him the right
+example, the example which he was determined to follow, in
+leaving the place. Before he could falter in his resolution, he
+gave notice of his departure. The one hope for him now was to
+find a refuge from himself in acts of mercy. Consolation was
+perhaps waiting for him in his Home.
+
+His unopened correspondence offered a harmless occupation to his
+thoughts, in the meanwhile. One after another he read the
+letters, with an attention constantly wandering and constantly
+recalled, until he opened the last of them that remained. In a
+moment more his interest was absorbed. The first sentences in the
+letter told him that the deserted creature whom he had met in the
+garden--the stranger to whom he had offered help and consolation
+in the present and in the future--was no other than the lost girl
+of whom he had been so long in search; the daughter of Roderick
+Westerfield, once his dearest and oldest friend.
+
+In the pages that followed, the writer confided to him her sad
+story; leaving it to her father's friend to decide whether she
+was worthy of the sympathy which he had offered to her, when he
+thought she was a stranger.
+
+This part of her letter was necessarily a repetition of what
+Bennydeck had read, in the confession which Catherine had
+addressed to him. That generous woman had been guilty of one, and
+but one, concealment of the truth. In relating the circumstances
+under which the elopement from Mount Morven had taken place, she
+had abstained, in justice to the sincerity of Sydney's
+repentance, from mentioning Sydney's name. "Another instance,"
+the Captain thought bitterly, as he closed the letter, "of the
+virtues which might have made the happiness of my life!"
+
+But he was bound to remember--and he did remember--that there was
+now a new interest, tenderly associating itself with his life to
+come. The one best way of telling Sydney how dear she was to him
+already, for her father's sake, would be to answer her in person.
+He hurried away to London by the first train, and drove at once
+to Randal's place of abode to ask for Sydney's address.
+
+Wondering what had become of the postscript to his letter, which
+had given Bennydeck the information of which he was now in
+search, Randal complied with his friend's request, and then
+ventured to allude to the report of the Captain's marriage
+engagement.
+
+"Am I to congratulate you?" he asked.
+
+"Congratulate me on having discovered Roderick Westerfield's
+daughter."
+
+That reply, and the tone in which it was given, led Randal to ask
+if the engagement had been prematurely announced.
+
+"There is no engagement at all," Bennydeck answered, with a look
+which suggested that it might be wise not to dwell on the
+subject.
+
+But the discovery was welcome to Randal, for his brother's sake.
+He ran the risk of consequences, and inquired if Catherine was
+still to be found at the hotel.
+
+The Captain answered by a sign in the negative.
+
+Randal persisted. "Do you know where she has gone?"
+
+"Nobody knows but her lawyer."
+
+"In that case," Randal concluded, "I shall get the information
+that I want." Noticing that Bennydeck looked surprised, he
+mentioned his motive. "Herbert is pining to see Kitty," h
+continued; "and I mean to help him. He has done all that a man
+could do to atone for the past. As things are, I believe I shall
+not offend Catherine, if I arrange for a meeting between father
+and child. What do you say?"
+
+Bennydeck answered, earnestly and eagerly: "Do it at once!"
+
+They left the house together--one to go to Sydney's lodgings, the
+other on his way to Mr. Sarrazin's office.
+
+
+
+Chapter LIV.
+
+
+Let Bygones Be Bygones.
+
+
+When the servant at the lodgings announced a visitor, and
+mentioned his name, Sydney's memory (instead of dwelling on the
+recollection of the Captain's kindness) perversely recalled the
+letter that she had addressed to him, and reminded her that she
+stood in need of indulgence, which even so good a man might
+hesitate to grant. Bennydeck's first words told the friendless
+girl that her fears had wronged him.
+
+"My dear, how like your father you are! You have his eyes and his
+smile; I can't tell you how pleasantly you remind me of my dear
+old friend." He took her hand, and kissed her as he might have
+kissed a daughter of his own. "Do you remember me at home,
+Sydney, when you were a child? No: you must have been too young
+for that."
+
+She was deeply touched. In faint trembling tones she said; "I
+remember your name; my poor father often spoke of you."
+
+A man who feels true sympathy is never in danger of mistaking his
+way to a woman's heart, when that woman has suffered. Bennydeck
+consoled, interested, charmed Sydney, by still speaking of the
+bygone days at home.
+
+"I well remember how fond your father was of you, and what a
+bright little girl you were," the Captain went on. "You have
+forgotten, I dare say, the old-fashioned sea-songs that he used
+to be so fond of teaching you. It was the strangest and prettiest
+contrast, to hear your small piping child's voice singing of
+storms and shipwrecks, and thunder and lightning, and reefing
+sails in cold and darkness, without the least idea of what it all
+meant. Your mother was strict in those days; you never amused her
+as you used to amuse your father and me. When she caught you
+searching my pockets for sweetmeats, she accused me of destroying
+your digestion before you were five years old. I went on spoiling
+it, for all that. The last time I saw you, my child, your father
+was singing 'The Mariners of England,' and you were on his knee
+trying to sing with him. You must have often wondered why you
+never saw anything more of me. Did you think I had forgotten
+you?"
+
+"I am quite sure I never thought that!"
+
+"You see I was in the Navy at the time," the Captain resumed;
+"and we were ordered away to a foreign station. When I got back
+to England, miserable news was waiting for me. I heard of your
+father's death and of that shameful Trial. Poor fellow! He was as
+innocent, Sydney, as you are of the offense which he was accused
+of committing. The first thing I did was to set inquiries on foot
+after your mother and her children. It was some consolation to me
+to feel that I was rich enough to make your lives easy and
+agreeable to you. I thought money could do anything. A serious
+mistake, my dear--money couldn't find the widow and her children.
+We supposed you were somewhere in London; and there, to my great
+grief, it ended. From time to time--long afterward, when we
+thought we had got the clew in our hands--I continued my
+inquiries, still without success. A poor woman and her little
+family are so easily engulfed in the big city! Years passed (more
+of them than I like to reckon up) before I heard of you at last
+by name. The person from whom I got my information told me how
+you were employed, and where."
+
+"Oh, Captain Bennydeck, who could the person have been?"
+
+"A poor old broken-down actor, Sydney. You were his favorite
+pupil. Do you remember him?"
+
+"I should be ungrateful indeed if I could forget him. He was the
+only person in the school who was kind to me. Is the good old man
+still living?"
+
+"No; he rests at last. I am glad to say I was able to make his
+last days on earth the happiest days of his life."
+
+"I wonder," Sydney confessed, "how you met with him."
+
+"There was nothing at all romantic in my first discovery of him.
+I was reading the police reports in a newspaper. The poor wretch
+was brought before a magistrate, charged with breaking a window.
+His one last chance of escaping starvation in the streets was to
+get sent to prison. The magistrate questioned him, and brought to
+light a really heart-breaking account of misfortune, imbittered
+by neglect on the part of people in authority who were bound to
+help him. He was remanded, so that inquiries might be made. I
+attended the court on the day when he appeared there again, and
+heard his statement confirmed. I paid his fine, and contrived to
+put him in a way of earning a little money. He was very grateful,
+and came now and then to thank me. In that way I heard how his
+troubles had begun. He had asked for a small advance on the
+wretched wages that he received. Can you guess how the
+schoolmistress answered him?"
+
+"I know but too well how she answered him," Sydney said; "I was
+turned out of the house, too."
+
+"And I heard of it," the Captain replied, "from the woman
+herself. Everything that could distress me she was ready to
+mention. She told me of your mother's second marriage, of her
+miserable death, of the poor boy, your brother, missing, and
+never heard of since. But when I asked where you had gone she had
+nothing more to say. She knew nothing, and cared nothing, about
+you. If I had not become acquainted with Mr. Randal Linley, I
+might never have heard of you again. We will say no more of that,
+and no more of anything that has happened in the past time. From
+to-day, my dear, we begin a new life, and (please God) a happier
+life. Have you any plans of your own for the future?"
+
+"Perhaps, if I could find help," Sydney said resignedly, "I might
+emigrate. Pride wouldn't stand in my way; no honest employment
+would be beneath my notice. Besides, if I went to America, I
+might meet with my brother."
+
+"My dear child, after the time that has passed, there is no
+imaginable chance of your meeting with your brother--and you
+wouldn't know each other again if you did meet. Give up that vain
+hope and stay here with me. Be useful and be happy in your own
+country."
+
+"Useful?" Sydney repeated sadly. "Your own kind heart, Captain
+Bennydeck, is deceiving you. To be useful means, I suppose, to
+help others. Who will accept help from me?"
+
+"I will, for one," the Captain answered.
+
+"You!"
+
+"Yes. You can be of the greatest use to me--you shall hear how."
+
+He told her of the founding of his Home and of the good it had
+done. "You are the very person," he resumed, "to be the good
+sister-friend that I want for my poor girls: _you_ can say for
+them what they cannot always say to me for themselves."
+
+The tears rose in Sydney's eyes. "It is hard to see such a
+prospect as that," she said, "and to give it up as soon as it is
+seen."
+
+"Why give it up?"
+
+"Because I am not fit for it. You are as good as a father to
+those lost daughters of yours. If you give them a sister-friend
+she ought to have set them a good example. Have I done that? Will
+they listen to a girl who is no better than themselves?"
+
+"Gladly! _Your_ sympathy will find its way to their hearts,
+because it is animated by something that they can all feel in
+common--something nearer and dearer to them than a sense of duty.
+You won't consent, Sydney, for their sakes? Will you do what I
+ask of you, for my sake?"
+
+She looked at him, hardly able to understand--or, as it might
+have been, perhaps afraid to understand him. He spoke to her more
+plainly.
+
+"I have kept it concealed from you," he continued--"for why
+should I lay my load of suffering on a friend so young as you
+are, so cruelly tried already? Let me only say that I am in great
+distress. If you were with me, my child, I might be better able
+to bear it."
+
+He held out his hand. Even a happy woman could hardly have found
+it in her heart to resist him. In silent sympathy and respect,
+Sydney kissed the hand that he had offered to her. It was the one
+way in which she could trust herself to answer him.
+
+Still encouraging her to see new hopes and new interests in the
+future, the good Captain spoke of the share which she might take
+in the management of the Home, if she would like to be his
+secretary. With this view he showed her some written reports,
+relating to the institution, which had been sent to him during
+the time of his residence at Sydenham. She read them with an
+interest and attention which amply justified his confidence in
+her capacity.
+
+"These reports," he explained to her, "are kept for reference;
+but as a means of saving time, the substance of them is entered
+in the daily journal of our proceedings. Come, Sydney! venture on
+a first experiment in your new character. I see pen, ink, and
+paper on the table; try if you can shorten one of the reports,
+without leaving out anything which it is important to know. For
+instance, the writer gives reasons for making his statement. Very
+well expressed, no doubt, but we don't want reasons. Then, again,
+he offers his own opinion on the right course to take. Very
+creditable to him, but I don't want his opinion--I want his
+facts. Take the pen, my secretary, and set down his facts. Never
+mind his reflections."
+
+Proud and pleased, Sydney obeyed him. She had made her little
+abstract, and was reading it to him at his request, while he
+compared it with the report, when they were interrupted by a
+visitor. Randal Linley came in, and noticed the papers on the
+table with surprise. "Is it possible that I am interrupting
+business?" he asked.
+
+Bennydeck answered with the assumed air of importance which was
+in itself a compliment to Sydney: "You find me engaged on the
+business of the Home with my new secretary."
+
+Randal at once understood what had happened. He took his friend's
+arm, and led him to the other end of the room.
+
+"You good fellow!" he said. "Add to your kindness by excusing me
+if I ask for a word with you in private."
+
+Sydney rose to retire. After having encouraged her by a word of
+praise, the Captain proposed that she should get ready to go out,
+and should accompany him on a visit to the Home. He opened the
+door for her as respectfully as if the poor girl had been one of
+the highest ladies in the land.
+
+"I have seen my friend Sarrazin," Randal began, "and I have
+persuaded him to trust me with Catherine's present address. I can
+send Herbert there immediately, if you will only help me."
+
+"How can I help you?"
+
+"Will you allow me to tell my brother that your engagement is
+broken off?"
+
+Bennydeck shrank from the painful allusion, and showed it.
+
+Randal explained. "I am grieved," he said, "to distress you by
+referring to this subject again. But if my brother is left under
+the false impression that your engagement will be followed by
+your marriage, he will refuse to intrude himself on the lady who
+was once his wife."
+
+The Captain understood. "Say what you please about me," he
+replied. "Unite the father and child--and you may reconcile the
+husband and wife."
+
+"Have you forgotten," Randal asked, "that the marriage has been
+dissolved?"
+
+Bennydeck's answer ignored the law. "I remember," he said, "that
+the marriage has been profaned."
+
+
+
+Chapter LV.
+
+
+Leave It to the Child.
+
+
+The front windows of Brightwater Cottage look out on a quiet
+green lane in Middlesex, which joins the highroad within a few
+miles of the market town of Uxbridge. Through the pretty garden
+at the back runs a little brook, winding its merry way to a
+distant river. The few rooms in this pleasant place of residence
+are well (too well) furnished, having regard to the limits of a
+building which is a cottage in the strictest sense of the word.
+Water-color drawings by the old English masters of the art
+ornament the dining-room. The parlor has been transformed into a
+library. From floor to ceiling all four of its walls are covered
+with books. Their old and well-chosen bindings, seen in the mass,
+present nothing less than a feast of color to the eye. The
+library and the works of art are described as heirlooms, which
+have passed into the possession of the present proprietor--one
+more among the hundreds of Englishmen who are ruined every year
+by betting on the Turf.
+
+So sorely in need of a little ready money was this victim of
+gambling--tacitly permitted or conveniently ignored by the
+audacious hypocrisy of a country which rejoiced in the extinction
+of Baden, and which still shudders at the name of Monaco--that he
+was ready to let his pretty cottage for no longer a term than one
+month certain; and he even allowed the elderly lady, who drove
+the hardest of hard bargains with him, to lessen by one guinea
+the house-rent paid for each week. He took his revenge by means
+of an ironical compliment, addressed to Mrs. Presty. "What a
+saving it would be to the country, ma'am, if you were Chancellor
+of the Exchequer!" With perfect gravity Mrs. Presty accepted that
+well-earned tribute of praise. "You are quite right, sir; I
+should be the first official person known to the history of
+England who took proper care of the public money."
+
+Within two days of the time when they had left the hotel at
+Sydenham, Catherine and her little family circle had taken
+possession of the cottage.
+
+The two ladies were sitting in the library each occupied with a
+book chosen from the well-stocked shelves. Catherine's reading
+appeared to be more than once interrupted by Catherine's
+thoughts. Noticing this circumstance, Mrs. Presty asked if some
+remarkable event had happened, and if it was weighing heavily on
+her daughter's mind.
+
+Catherine answered that she was thinking of Kitty, and that
+anxiety connected with the child did weigh heavily on her mind.
+
+Some days had passed (she reminded Mrs. Presty) since the
+interview at which Herbert Linley had bidden her farewell. On
+that occasion he had referred to her proposed marriage (never to
+be a marriage now!) in terms of forbearance and generosity which
+claimed her sincerest admiration. It might be possible for her to
+show a grateful appreciation of his conduct. Devotedly fond of
+his little daughter, he must have felt acutely his long
+separation from her; and it was quite likely that he might ask to
+see Kitty. But there was an obstacle in the way of her willing
+compliance with that request, which it was impossible to think of
+without remorse, and which it was imperatively necessary to
+remove. Mrs. Presty would understand that she alluded to the
+shameful falsehood which had led the child to suppose that her
+father was dead.
+
+Strongly disapproving of the language in which her daughter had
+done justice to the conduct of the divorced husband, Mrs. Presty
+merely replied: "You are Kitty's mother; I leave it to you"--and
+returned to her reading.
+
+Catherine could not feel that she had deserved such an answer as
+this. "Did I plan the deception?" she asked. "Did I tell the
+lie?"
+
+Mrs. Presty was not in the least offended. "You are comparatively
+innocent, my dear," she admitted, with an air of satirical
+indulgence. "You only consented to the deception, and profited by
+the lie. Suppose we own the truth? You are afraid."
+
+Catherine owned the truth in the plainest terms:
+
+"Yes, I _am_ afraid."
+
+"And you leave it to me?"
+
+"I leave it to you."
+
+Mrs. Presty complacently closed her book. "I was quite prepared
+to hear it," she said; "all the unpleasant complications since
+your Divorce--and Heaven only knows how many of them have
+presented themselves--have been left for me to unravel. It so
+happens--though I was too modest to mention it prematurely--that
+I have unraveled _this_ complication. If one only has eyes to see
+it, there is a way out of every difficulty that can possibly
+happen." She pushed the book that she had been reading across the
+table to Catherine. "Turn to page two hundred and forty," she
+said. "There is the way out."
+
+The title of the book was "Disasters at Sea"; and the page
+contained the narrative of a shipwreck. On evidence apparently
+irresistible, the drowning of every soul on board the lost vessel
+had been taken for granted--when a remnant of the passengers and
+crew had been discovered on a desert island, and had been safely
+restored to their friends. Having read this record of suffering
+and suspense, Catherine looked at her mother, and waited for an
+explanation.
+
+"Don't you see it?" Mrs. Presty asked.
+
+"I can't say that I do."
+
+The old lady's excellent temper was not in the least ruffled,
+even by this.
+
+"Quite inexcusable on my part," she acknowledged; "I ought to
+have remembered that you don't inherit your mother's vivid
+imagination. Age has left me in full possession of those powers
+of invention which used to amaze your poor father. He wondered
+how it was that I never wrote a novel. Mr. Presty's appreciation
+of my intellect was equally sincere; but he took a different
+view. 'Beware, my dear,' he said, 'of trifling with the
+distinction which you now enjoy: you are one of the most
+remarkable women in England--you have never written a novel.'
+Pardon me; I am wandering into the region of literary anecdote,
+when I ought to explain myself. Now pray attend to this:--I
+propose to tell Kitty that I have found a book which is sure to
+interest her; and I shall direct her attention to the lamentable
+story which you have just read. She is quite sharp enough (there
+are sparks of my intellectual fire in Kitty) to ask if the
+friends of the poor shipwrecked people were not very much
+surprised to see them again. To this I shall answer: 'Very much,
+indeed, for their friends thought they were dead.' Ah, you dear
+dull child, you see it now!"
+
+Catherine saw it so plainly that she was eager to put the first
+part of the experiment to an immediate trial.
+
+Kitty was sent for, and made her appearance with a fishing-rod
+over her shoulder. "I'm going to the brook," she announced;
+"expect some fish for dinner to-day."
+
+A wary old hand stopped Catherine, in the act of presenting
+"Disasters at Sea," to Kitty's notice; and a voice, distinguished
+by insinuating kindness, said to the child: "When you have done
+fishing, my dear, come to me; I have got a nice book for you to
+read.--How very absurd of you, Catherine," Mrs. Presty continued,
+when they were alone again, "to expect the child to read, and
+draw her own conclusions, while her head is full of fishing! If
+there are any fish in the brook, _she_ won't catch them. When she
+comes back disappointed and says: 'What am I to do now?' the
+'Disasters at Sea' will have a chance. I make it a rule never to
+boast; but if there is a thing that I understand, it's the
+management of children. Why didn't I have a large family?"
+
+Attended by the faithful Susan, Kitty baited her hook, and began
+to fish where the waters of the brook were overshadowed by trees.
+
+A little arbor covered by a thatched roof, and having walls of
+wooden lattice-work, hidden by creepers climbing over them inside
+and out, offered an attractive place of rest on this sheltered
+side of the garden. Having brought her work with her, the
+nursemaid retired to the summer-house and diligently plied her
+needle, looking at Kitty from time to time through the open door.
+The air was delightfully cool, the pleasant rippling of the brook
+fell soothingly on the ear, the seat in the summer-house received
+a sitter with the softly-yielding submission of elastic wires.
+Susan had just finished her early dinner: in mind and body alike,
+this good girl was entirely and deservedly at her ease. By finely
+succeeding degrees, her eyelids began to show a tendency
+downward; her truant needle-work escaped from her fingers, and
+lay lazily on her lap. She snatched it up with a start, and sewed
+with severe resolution until her thread was exhausted. The reel
+was ready at her side; she took it up for a fresh supply, and
+innocently rested her head against the leafy and flowery wall of
+the arbor. Was it thought that gradually closed her eyes again?
+or was it sleep? In either case, Susan was lost to all sense of
+passing events; and Susan's breathing became musically regular,
+emulous of the musical regularity of the brook.
+
+As a lesson in patience, the art of angling pursued in a shallow
+brook has its moral uses. Kitty fished, and waited, and renewed
+the bait and tried again, with a command of temper which would
+have been a novelty in Susan's experience, if Susan had been
+awake. But the end which comes to all things came also to Kitty's
+patience. Leaving her rod on the bank, she let the line and hook
+take care of themselves, and wandered away in search of some new
+amusement.
+
+Lingering here and there to gather flowers from the beds as she
+passed them, Kitty was stopped by a shrubbery, with a rustic seat
+placed near it, which marked the limits of the garden on that
+side. The path that she had been following led her further and
+further away from the brook, but still left it well in view. She
+could see, on her right hand, the clumsy old wooden bridge which
+crossed the stream, and served as a means of communication for
+the servants and the tradespeople, between the cottage and the
+village on the lower ground a mile away.
+
+The child felt hot and tired. She rested herself on the bench,
+and, spreading the flowers by her side, began to arrange them in
+the form of a nosegay. Still true to her love for Sydney, she had
+planned to present the nosegay to her mother, offering the gift
+as an excuse for returning to the forbidden subject of her
+governess, and for asking when they might hope to see each other
+again.
+
+Choosing flowers and then rejecting them, trying other colors and
+wondering whether she had accomplished a change for the better,
+Kitty was startled by the sound of a voice calling to her from
+the direction of the brook.
+
+She looked round, and saw a gentleman crossing the bridge. He
+asked the way to Brightwater Cottage.
+
+There was something in his voice that attracted her--how or why,
+at her age, she never thought of inquiring. Eager and excited,
+she ran across the lawn which lay between her and the brook,
+before she answered the gentleman's question.
+
+As they approached each other, his eyes sparkled, his face
+flushed; he cried out joyfully, "Here she is!"--and then changed
+again in an instant. A horrid pallor overspread his face as the
+child stood looking at him with innocent curiosity. He startled
+Kitty, not because he seemed to be shocked and distressed, she
+hardly noticed that; but because he was so like--although he was
+thinner and paler and older--oh, so like her lost father!
+
+"This is the cottage, sir," she said faintly.
+
+His sorrowful eyes rested kindly on her. And yet, it seemed as if
+she had in some way disappointed him. The child ventured to say:
+"Do you know me, sir?"
+
+He answered in the saddest voice that Kitty had ever heard: "My
+little girl, what makes you think I know you?"
+
+She was at a loss how to reply, fearing to distress him. She
+could only say: "You are so like my poor papa."
+
+He shook and shuddered, as if she had said something to frighten
+him. He took her hand. On that hot day, his fingers felt as cold
+as if it had been winter time. He led her back to the seat that
+she had left. "I'm tired, my dear," he said. "Shall we sit down?"
+It was surely true that he was tired. He seemed hardly able to
+lift one foot after the other; Kitty pitied him. "I think you
+must be ill;" she said, as they took their places, side by side,
+on the bench.
+
+"No; not ill. Only weary, and perhaps a little afraid of
+frightening you." He kept her hand in his hand, and patted it
+from time to time. "My dear, why did you say '_poor_ papa,' when
+you spoke of your father just now?"
+
+"My father is dead, sir."
+
+He turned his face away from her, and pressed both hands on his
+breast, as if he had felt some dreadful pain there, and was
+trying to hide it. But he mastered the pain; and he said a
+strange thing to her--very gently, but still it was strange. He
+wished to know who had told her that her father was dead.
+
+"Grandmamma told me."
+
+"Do you remember what grandmamma said?"
+
+"Yes--she told me papa was drowned at sea."
+
+He said something to himself, and said it twice over. "Not her
+mother! Thank God, not her mother!" What did he mean?
+
+Kitty looked and looked at him, and wondered and wondered. He put
+his arm round her. "Come near to me," he said. "Don't be afraid
+of me, my dear." She moved nearer and showed him that she was not
+afraid. The poor man seemed hardly to understand her. His eyes
+grew dim; he sighed like a person in distress; he said: "Your
+father would have kissed you, little one, if he had been alive.
+You say I am like your father. May I kiss you?"
+
+She put her hands on his shoulder and lifted her face to him. In
+the instant when he kissed her, the child knew him. Her heart
+beat suddenly with an overpowering delight; she started back from
+his embrace. "That's how papa used to kiss me!" she cried. "Oh!
+you _are_ papa! Not drowned! not drowned!" She flung her arms
+round his neck, and held him as if she would never let him go
+again. "Dear papa! Poor lost papa!" His tears fell on her face;
+he sobbed over her. "My sweet darling! my own little Kitty!"
+
+The hysterical passion that had overcome her father filled her
+with piteous surprise. How strange, how dreadful that he should
+cry--that he should be so sorry when she was so glad! She took
+her little handkerchief out of the pocket of her pinafore, and
+dried his eyes. "Are you thinking of the cruel sea, papa? No! the
+good sea, the kind, bright, beautiful sea that has given you back
+to me, and to mamma--!"
+
+They had forgotten her mother!--and Kitty only discovered it now.
+She caught at one of her father's hands hanging helpless at his
+side, and pulled at it as if her little strength could force him
+to his feet. "Come," she cried, "and make mamma as happy as I
+am!"
+
+He hesitated. She sprang on his knee; she pressed her cheek
+against his cheek with the caressing tenderness, familiar to him
+in the first happy days when she was an infant. "Oh, papa, are
+you going to be unkind to me for the first time in your life?"
+
+His momentary resistance was at an end. He was as weak in her
+hands now as if he had been the child and she had been the man.
+
+Laughing and singing and dancing round him, Kitty led the way to
+the window of the room that opened on the garden. Some one had
+closed it on the inner side. She tapped impatiently at the glass.
+Her mother heard the tapping; her mother came to the window; her
+mother ran out to meet them. Since the miserable time when they
+left Mount Morven, since the long unnatural separation of the
+parents and the child, those three were together once more!
+
+
+
+AFTER THE STORY
+
+
+
+1.--The Lawyer's Apology.
+
+
+That a woman of my wife's mature years should be jealous of one
+of the most exemplary husbands that the records of matrimony can
+produce is, to say the least of it, a discouraging circumstance.
+A man forgets that virtue is its own reward, and asks, What is
+the use of conjugal fidelity?
+
+However, the motto of married life is (or ought to be): Peace at
+any price. I have been this day relieved from the condition of
+secrecy that has been imposed on me. You insisted on an
+explanation some time since. Here it is at last.
+
+For the ten-thousandth time, my dear, in our joint lives, you are
+again right. That letter, marked private, which I received at the
+domestic tea-table, was what you positively declared it to be, a
+letter from a lady--a charming lady, plunged in the deepest
+perplexity. We had been well known to each other for many years,
+as lawyer and client. She wanted advice on this occasion
+also--and wanted it in the strictest confidence. Was it
+consistent with my professional duty to show her letter to my
+wife? Mrs. Sarrazin says Yes; Mrs. Sarrazin's husband says No.
+
+Let me add that the lady was a person of unblemished reputation,
+and that she was placed in a false position through no fault of
+her own. In plain English, she was divorced. Ah, my dear (to
+speak in the vivid language of the people), do you smell a rat?
+
+Yes: my client was Mrs. Norman; and to her pretty cottage in the
+country I betook myself the next day. There I found my excellent
+friend Randal Linley, present by special invitation.
+
+Stop a minute. Why do I write all this, instead of explaining
+myself by word of mouth? My love, you are a member of an old and
+illustrious family; you honored me when you married me; and you
+have (as your father told me on our wedding day) the high and
+haughty temper of your race. I foresee an explosion of this
+temper, and I would rather have my writing-paper blown up than be
+blown up myself.
+
+Is this a cowardly confession on my part? All courage, Mrs.
+Sarrazin, is relative; the bravest man living has a cowardly side
+to his character, though it may not always be found out. Some
+years ago, at a public dinner, I sat next to an officer in the
+British army. At one time in his life he had led a forlorn hope.
+At another time, he had picked up a wounded soldier, and had
+carried him to the care of the surgeons through a hail-storm of
+the enemy's bullets. Hot courage and cool courage, this true hero
+possessed both. _I_ saw the cowardly side of his character. He
+lost his color; perspiration broke out on his forehead; he
+trembled; he talked nonsense; he was frightened out of his wits.
+And all for what? Because he had to get on his legs and make a
+speech!
+
+Well: Mrs. Norman, and Randal Linley, and I, sat down to our
+consultation at the cottage.
+
+What did my fair client want?
+
+She contemplated marrying for the second time, and she wanted my
+advice as a lawyer, and my encouragement as an old friend. I was
+quite ready; I only waited for particulars. Mrs. Norman became
+dreadfully embarrassed, and said: "I refer you to my
+brother-in-law."
+
+I looked at Randal. "Once her brother-in-law, no doubt," I said;
+"but after the Divorce--" My friend stopped me there. "After the
+Divorce," he remarked, "I may be her brother-in-law again."
+
+If this meant anything, it meant that she was actually going to
+marry Herbert Linley again. This was too ridiculous. "If it's a
+joke," I said, "I have heard better fun in my time. If it's only
+an assertion, I don't believe it."
+
+"Why not?" Randal asked.
+
+"Saying I do want you, in one breath--and I don't want you, in
+another--seems to be a little hard on Divorce," I ventured to
+suggest.
+
+"Don't expect _me_ to sympathize with Divorce," Randal said.
+
+I answered that smartly. "No; I'll wait till you are married."
+
+He took it seriously. "Don't misunderstand me," he replied.
+"Where there is absolute cruelty, or where there is deliberate
+desertion, on the husband's part, I see the use and the reason
+for Divorce. If the unhappy wife can find an honorable man who
+will protect her, or an honorable man who will offer her a home,
+Society and Law, which are responsible for the institution of
+marriage, are bound to allow a woman outraged under the shelter
+of their institution to marry again. But, where the husband's
+fault is sexual frailty, I say the English law which refuses
+Divorce on that ground alone is right, and the Scotch law which
+grants it is wrong. Religion, which rightly condemns the sin,
+pardons it on the condition of true penitence. Why is a wife not
+to pardon it for the same reason? Why are the lives of a father,
+a mother, and a child to be wrecked, when those lives may be
+saved by the exercise of the first of Christian
+virtues--forgiveness of injuries? In such a case as this I regret
+that Divorce exists; and I rejoice when husband and wife and
+child are one flesh again, re-united by the law of Nature, which
+is the law of God."
+
+I might have disputed with him; but I thought he was right. I
+also wanted to make sure of the facts. "Am I really to
+understand," I asked, "that Mr. Herbert Linley is to be this
+lady's husband for the second time?"
+
+"If there is no lawful objection to it," Randal said--"decidedly
+Yes."
+
+My good wife, in all your experience you never saw your husband
+stare as he stared at that moment. Here was a lady divorced by
+her own lawful desire and at her own personal expense, thinking
+better of it after no very long interval, and proposing to marry
+the man again. Was there ever anything so grossly improbable?
+Where is the novelist who would be bold enough to invent such an
+incident as this?
+
+Never mind the novelist. How did it end?
+
+Of course it could only end in one way, so far as I was
+concerned. The case being without precedent in my experience, I
+dropped my professional character at the outset. Speaking next as
+a friend, I had only to say to Mrs. Norman: "The Law has declared
+you and Mr. Herbert Linley to be single people. Do what other
+single people do. Buy a license, and give notice at a church--and
+by all means send wedding cards to the judge who divorced you."
+
+Said; and, in another fortnight, done. Mr. and Mrs. Herbert
+Linley were married again this morning; and Randal and I were the
+only witnesses present at the ceremony, which was strictly
+private.
+
+
+
+2.--The Lawyer's Defense.
+
+
+
+I wonder whether the foregoing pages of my writing-paper have
+been torn to pieces and thrown into the waste-paper basket? You
+wouldn't litter the carpet. No. I may be torn in pieces, but I do
+you justice for all that.
+
+What are the objections to the divorced husband and wife becoming
+husband and wife again? Mrs. Presty has stated them in the
+following order. Am I wrong in assuming that, on this occasion at
+least, you will agree with Mrs. Presty?
+
+First Objection: Nobody has ever done such a thing before.
+
+Second Objection: Penitent or not penitent, Mr. Herbert Linley
+doesn't deserve it.
+
+Third Objection: No respectable person will visit them.
+
+First Reply: The question is not whether the thing has been done
+before, but whether the doing of the thing is right in itself
+There is no clause in the marriage service forbidding a wife to
+forgive her husband; but there is a direct prohibition to any
+separation between them. It is, therefore, not wrong to forgive
+Mr. Herbert Linley, and it is absolutely right to marry him
+again.
+
+Second Reply: When their child brings him home, and takes it for
+granted that her father and mother should live together,
+_because_ they are her father and mother, innocent Kitty has
+appealed from the Law of Divorce to the Law of Nature. Whether
+Herbert Linley has deserved it or whether he has not, there he is
+in the only fit place for him--and there is an end of the second
+objection.
+
+Third Reply: A flat contradiction to the assertion that no
+respectable person will visit her. Mrs. Sarrazin will visit her.
+Yes, you will, my dear! Not because I insist upon it--Do I ever
+insist on anything? No; you will act on your own responsibility,
+out of compassion for a misguided old woman. Judge for yourself
+when you read what follows, if Mrs. Presty is not sadly in need
+of the good example of an ornament to her sex.
+
+The Evil Genius of the family joined us in the cottage parlor
+when our consultations had come to an end. I had the honor of
+communicating the decision at which we had arrived. Mrs. Presty
+marched to the door; and, from that commanding position,
+addressed a few farewell remarks to her daughter.
+
+"I have done with you, Catherine. You have reached the limits of
+my maternal endurance at last. I shall set up my own
+establishment, and live again--in memory--with Mr. Norman and Mr.
+Presty. May you be happy. I don't anticipate it."
+
+She left the room--and came back again for a last word, addressed
+this time to Randal Linley.
+
+"When you next see your friend, Captain Bennydeck, give him my
+compliments, Mr. Randal, and say I congratulate him on having
+been jilted by my daughter. It would have been a sad thing,
+indeed, if such a sensible man had married an idiot.
+Good-morning."
+
+She left the room again, and came back again for another last
+word, addressed on this occasion to me. Her better nature made an
+effort to express itself, not altogether without success.
+
+"I think it is quite likely, Mr. Sarrazin, that some dreadful
+misfortune will fall on my daughter, as the punishment of her
+undutiful disregard of her mother's objections. In that case, I
+shall feel it my duty to return and administer maternal
+consolation. When you write, address me at my banker's. I make
+allowances for a lawyer, sir; I don't blame You."
+
+She opened the door for the third time--stepped out, and stepped
+back again into the room--suddenly gave her daughter a fierce
+kiss--returned to the door--shook her fist at Mrs. Linley with a
+theatrically-threatening gesture--said, "Unnatural child!"--and,
+after this exhibition of her better nature, and her worse, left
+us at last. When you visit the remarried pair on their return
+from their second honeymoon, take Mrs. Presty with you.
+
+
+
+3.--The Lawyer's Last Word.
+
+
+"When you force this ridiculous and regrettable affair on my
+attention" (I think I hear Mrs. Sarrazin say), "the least you can
+do is to make your narrative complete. But perhaps you propose to
+tell me personally what has become of Kitty, and what
+well-deserved retribution has overtaken Miss Westerfield."
+
+No: I propose in this case also to communicate my information in
+writing--at the safe distance from home of Lincoln's Inn Fields.
+
+Kitty accompanies her father and mother to the Continent, of
+course. But she insisted on first saying good-by to the dear
+friend, once the dear governess, whom she loves. Randal and I
+volunteered to take her (with her mother's ready permission) to
+see Miss Westerfield. Try not to be angry. Try not to tear me up.
+
+We found Captain Bennydeck and his pretty secretary enjoying a
+little rest and refreshment, after a long morning's work for the
+good of the Home. The Captain was carving the chicken; and
+Sydney, by his side, was making the salad. The house-cat occupied
+a third chair, with her eyes immovably fixed on the movements of
+the knife and fork. Perhaps I was thinking of sad past days.
+Anyway, it seemed to me to be as pretty a domestic scene as a man
+could wish to look at. The arrival of Kitty made the picture
+complete.
+
+Our visit was necessarily limited by a due remembrance of the
+hour of departure, by an early tidal train. Kitty's last words to
+Sydney bade her bear their next meeting in mind, and not be
+melancholy at only saying good-by for a time. Like all children,
+she asks strange questions. When we were out in the street again,
+she said to her uncle: "Do you think my nice Captain will marry
+Syd?"
+
+Randal had noticed, in Captain Bennydeck's face, signs which
+betrayed that the bitterest disappointment of his life was far
+from being a forgotten disappointment yet. If it had been put by
+any other person, poor Kitty's absurd question might have met
+with a bitter reply. As it was, her uncle only said: "My dear
+child, that is no business of yours or mine."
+
+Not in the least discouraged, Kitty turned to me. "What do _you_
+think, Samuel?"
+
+I followed Randal's lead, and answered, "How should I know?"
+
+The child looked from one to the other of us. "Shall I tell you
+what I think?" she said, "I think you are both of you humbugs."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext of The Evil Genius, by Wilkie Collins
+
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