"Mr. Grubb, how dare you offer me this insult?"
"Do not meet me in this way, Adela. I am asking you a solemn question; remember that there is One above Who will hear and register your answer. Were you the principal in this transaction, and was Cleveland but your agent? Do not fear to trust me—your husband: you shall have my free forgiveness, now, beforehand, my shelter, my protection. Only tell me the truth, as you wish it to be well with us both in after-life."
Again she cowered before his gaze, and again recovered herself. Could it be that her better angel was prompting her to the truthful path?
"What can possibly have induced you to put such a question to me?"
"It is an idea that has forced itself upon my mind. Without some such explanation the affair is to me an utter mystery. If Charles Cleveland——"
"And don't you think you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" she interrupted. "I rob a bank! I steal a cheque! Has it come to this—that you suspectme?"
"Forgive me, Adela, if I am wrong. Be it how it may, you should meet me differently. Oh, my wife, let there be perfect confidence between us at this moment, on this subject. Tell me the truth, as before Heaven!"
"Am I in the habit of telling you untruths? I thought the truths I tell you were generally a little too plain to be pleasant," she added, in her bravado. "None but a mean-spirited man could so suspect his wife."
"This is all you have to say to me, Adela—your definite answer?"
"Definite enough," she retorted, with a nervous sob, between a laugh and a cry; for, what with fear and discomfort, she was becoming slightly hysterical.
"I am bound to believe you, Adela," he said, the tears in her eyes disarming his latent doubts. "I do believe you. But——"
"And now that you have had your say, listen to me," she interrupted, choking down all better feelings and speaking with contemptuous anger. "Never speak on the subject to me again if you would keep up the semblance of peace between us. My spirit is being dangerously aroused against you, Mr. Grubb; not only for this injustice to me, but for your barbarous treatment of poor Charles Cleveland."
Once more, he knew not why or wherefore, something like a doubt returned to Mr. Grubb's mind. He held her before him.
"It has been the truth, Adela?—as I hope, and pray, and trust! I ask it you once again—that it may be well with us in after-life."
"Would I trouble myself to tell a falsehood about it toyou!Do you think I have no feeling—that I should bear such distrust? And if you would recompense me for this mauvais quart d'heure, you will release that poor fellow tomorrow—for his father's sake."
She flung her husband's arm away and quitted the room, leaving him tohisfeelings. Few can imagine them—torn, outraged, thrown back upon his generous heart. But she had certainly managed to dispel his doubts of herself. No guilty woman, as he believed, could have faced it out as she did.
"It must have been Cleveland's own act and deed, and no other person's," he mentally concluded. "What madness could have come over the lad?"
One of the most able counsellors of the day, Mr. Serjeant Mowham, chanced to be intimately acquainted with the Rector of Netherleigh; and the unhappy father despatched him to Newgate, in a friendly, not in a legal capacity, to see what he could do with or for the prisoner.
He could not do much. The old saying, "Tell your whole case to your lawyer and your doctor," is essential advice, but Charles Cleveland would tell nothing, neither truth nor falsehood. In vain Serjeant Mowham protested, with tears in his eyes (a stock of which, so the Bar affirmed, he kept in readiness), that he was working in the dark, working for pure friendship's sake, and that without some clue or hint to go upon, no defence that had a chance of success could be made, even though his advocate before the judge told all theuntruths that ever advocate's tongue gave utterance to. The prisoner was immovable, and Serjeant Mowham in despair.
How matters really would have ended, and whether Mr. Howard would have allowed it to come to trial, cannot be said, had not fortune been kinder to Charles than he was to himself.
One morning, when the days before the prisoner's second examination were growing few, the Earl of Acorn had a slice of luck. He had backed a certain horse at a provincial race meeting, and the horse won. Amongst other moneys that changed hands was a fifty-pound note. An hour after the earl received it he made his way into his drawing-room in haste, where sat his daughters, Grace, and Mary Cleveland; the latter with her infant on her lap.
"Mary," cried the earl, "what were the numbers of the notes paid over to Charles Cleveland at Glyn's? I partly remember them, but not quite."
"My husband has the numbers," answered Lady Mary. "But the thing has given me by far too much worry, papa, for me to retain them in my head. I am not sure I ever heard them."
"I have them," interrupted Grace. "I copied them the other day. There was no knowing, I thought, but it might prove useful."
"Quite right, Gracie, girl," said the earl. "Let's see them: 'A/Y 3, 0, 2, 5, 5,'" continued Lord Acorn, reading one of the numbers which Lady Grace laid before him. "I thought so. One of these notes has just been paid to me, Mary, by young Waterware."
"Where did he get it?" eagerly inquired Grace.
"I did not ask him. It was only since I left him that I noticed the number. I'll get it out of him by-and-by."
"At once, at once, sir," urged Mary. "Oh, papa, do go to him. I feelsureCharles is not guilty."
"No impatience, Mary. Where the deuce am I to pick up Waterware at this time of day? I might as well look for a needle in a bottle of hay. Tonight I shall know where to find him."
Chance, however, favoured the earl. In strolling up St. James's Street in the afternoon, he met Lord Waterware.
"I say, Waterware," he began, linking his arm in that of the younger peer, "where did you get that fifty-pound note you gave me this morning?"
"Where did I get it? Let's see. Oh, from Nile. He was owing me a hundred pounds, and paid me yesterday. That fifty, two twenties, and a ten. Why? It's not forged, I suppose," cried the young nobleman, with a yawn.
"Not exactly. Wish I had a handful of them. Good-day. I'm going on to Nile's."
Colonel Nile, though addicted to playing a little at cards for what he called amusement, and sometimes did it for tolerably high stakes, was a very different man from those other men mentioned in this history—Colonel Haughton and Mr. Piggott, who had led Robert Dalrymple to his ruin. They were professed gamblers, and had disappeared from good society long ago. Colonel Nile was a popular member of it, liked and respected.
Lord Acorn found him at home, walking about in a flowery dressing-gown. He was a middle-aged man and a bachelor, and well off.
"The fifty-pound note I paid over to Waterware," cautiously repeated Colonel Nile, somewhat surprised at the question, and wondering whether random young Waterware had got into any scrape. "Why do you want to know where I got it?"
"Because it is one of the notes that Charley Cleveland is in trouble for: the first of them that has been traced. You must give me the information, Nile, or I shall apply for it publicly."
"Oh, I have no objection in the world," cried the colonel, determined to afford all that was in his power, and so wash his hands of any unpleasantness that might turn up. "I received it at Lady Sanely's loo table, from—— Egad! from your own daughter, Lady Adela."
"From Lady Adela!" echoed the surprised listener.
"From Lady Adela, and nobody else," repeated Colonel Nile. "She paid another fifty to the old Dowager Beck the same evening."
Lord Acorn stared. "But surely they don't play as high as that there!"
"Don't they, though! and higher too. To tell you the truth, Acorn, it's getting a little too high for prudent people. I, for one, mean to draw in. Old Mother Sanely lives but for cards, and she'd stake her head if it were loose. She has the deuce's own luck, though."
With a mental word, sharp and short, given to his daughter Adela for allowing herself to be mixed up in company and amusement such as this, Lord Acorn brought his attention back to the present moment. "Adela gave another fifty-pound note to Lady Beck, you say, the same evening! Do you happen to know its number?"
"Not I," retorted the colonel, who was not altogether pleased at the question. "I don't make it my business to pry into notes that do not concern me."
"How long is it ago?"
"I hardly know. Nearly a week, I suppose. It is four or five days since I was first confined to the house with this incipient gout. I think it was the night before that—Saturday night."
Lord Acorn proceeded straight to Lady Beck's; and, with much trouble and persuasion, she was induced to exhibit the note spoken of by Colonel Nile, which was still in her possession, for, like the colonel, she had been ill for some days, so had had no opportunity of playing it away. The old dowager was verging on her dotage, and could not, at first, be convinced that the earl was not going to take law proceedings against her for winning money of his daughter. He soothed her, copied the number by stealth, went home, and compared it with Lady Grace's pocketbook.It was another of the notes!
"What do you think of it, Grace?" cried the earl, in perplexity. "Can Cleveland have been owing money to Adela?"
"I should imagine not," replied Lady Grace.
"To think she should be such a little fool as to frequent a place where they play like that!"
"But, papa, you knew of it."
"I did not know old Sanely went in for those ruinous stakes. Five pounds, or so, in a night to risk—I thought no worse than that."
Grace understood now. She had deemed her father indifferent. He was then looking at it from one point of view; she from another.
"It wears a singular appearance," mused the earl. "To tell you the truth, Grace, I don't like the fact of these notes being traced to Adela. It looks—after the rumour of the absurd flirtation they carried on—almost as if she and Cleveland had gone snacks in the spoil. What now, Gracie? Are you going to fly?"
For Lady Grace Chenevix had bounded from her chair in sudden agitation, her arms lifted as if to ward off some dread fear. "Sir! father! the thing has become clear to me. That I should not have suspected it before!—knowing what I did know."
"Child," he cried, gazing at her in amazement, "what is the matter with you?"
"Adela did this. I see it all. She drew the cheque. Charles Cleveland was only her instrument; and, in his infatuated attachment he has taken the guilt on himself, to shield her. Well may he have asserted his innocence to his father! Well may his conduct have appeared to us all so incomprehensible!"
"Why, Grace, you are mad!" gasped the earl. "Accuse your sister of—of—forgery! Do you reflect on the meaning of your words?"
"Father, do not look so sternly at me. I feel sure I am right. I assure you it is as if scales had fallen from my eyes, for I see it perfectly clearly. Adela wanted money for play: she had been drawn in, far deeper than any one suspected, sir, at Lady Sanely's gaming-table. It was Mr. Grubb's intention to refuse her further funds: no doubt he did refuse them: and then——"
"How do you know it was his intention?"
"Oh, papa, I do know it; never mind how, now; I say that Mr. Grubb must have refused her; and she, when this cheque-book fell into her hands——"
"Don't continue, Grace," sharply interposed Lord Acorn; "you make my blood run cold. You must prove what you assert, or retract it. If—it—is proved"—the earl drew a long breath—"Cleveland must be extricated. What a thundering fool the fellow must be?"
"Let me have time to think," said Grace, putting her hand to her head. "Extricated of course he must be, for I know it is true, but—if possible—without exposing Adela."
With the last words, Grace sank back in her chair and burst into a storm of sobs. Lord Acorn was little less moved. They spoke together further, and agreed not to tell Mary Cleveland, in spite of her state of impatience, that Lord Acorn had traced the numbers of the two notes.
Lady Grace decided to confide all to Mr. Grubb. It could not be kept from him long; and she wanted to bespeak his clemency for Adela. So in the evening she proceeded to his house, tolerably sure that her sister would be out somewhere or other. But she found Mr. Grubb also out: at his club, Hilson thought. Grace dismissed her carriage, went up to the drawing-room, and wrote a word to Mr. Grubb, asking him to come home. The thought crossed her, that perhaps it was not quite the thing to do, but Lady Grace Chenevix was not the one to stand upon formal ceremony.
He returned at once, looking rather anxious. "Anything the matter, Grace? Anything amiss with Adela? She's not ill?"
"She is at the opera, I fancy; very well, no doubt." And then she sat down and imparted her suspicions—just an allusion to them—that her poor sister was the culprit.
"Grace," he whispered, "I don't mind telling you that the same fear haunted me, and I spoke to her. She indignantly denied it."
"Two of the notes have been traced," murmured Grace.
"Traced!"
"Paid away by Adela at Lady Sanely's."
There was a dead silence. Lady Grace Chenevix did not raise her eyelids, for she felt keenly the pain of avowal. An ominous shade of despair overspread his face.
"Grace, Grace," he broke forth in anguish, "what is it you are saying?"
"One of them, for fifty pounds, came into my father's hands today, and he has traced it back to Adela," continued Grace, striving to keep down the signs of her pain. "Another of them she paid the same evening to the Dowager Beck. Papa knows of this; he found it out today. What inference can we draw but that Adela—— You know what I would say."
"Could she descend to this?" he groaned. "To be a party with Charles Cleveland in——"
"Charles was no party to it," interrupted Grace, warmly; "he must have been her instrument, nothing more. Rely upon that. Whatever may be his follies, he is the soul of honour. And it must be from some chivalrous sense of honour, of noblesse oblige, you understand, that he is continuing to shield her now the matter has come out. What is to be done? Charles Cleveland must not be tried as a felon."
"Heaven forbid!—if he be indeed innocent. But, Grace," thoughtfully added Mr. Grubb, "I cannot but think you are mistaken. Were Adela guilty, she would have acknowledged it to me when I assured her in all tenderness that I would forgive, shield, and protect her."
Grace answered by a despairing gesture. "She would not confess to you for very shame, I fear. Dear Mr. Grubb,whatis to be done? We have to save Adela's good name as well as his. You must see Charles, and get the truth from him."
"I would rather get it from Adela."
"If you can. I doubt it. Having denied it once, she will never confess now."
Lady Grace had reason. Mr. Grubb spoke to his wife the following morning. He said that two of the notes had been traced to her possession; and that, for her own sake, she had better explain, while grace was yet held out to her. But he spoke very coolly, without the smallest sign of endearment or tenderness; nay, there was a suspicion of contempt in his tone, and that put Adela's spirit up.
What answered she? Was she quite blind, quite foolish? She persisted in her denial, called him by a scornful name, haughtily ordered him to be silent, and finally marched out of his presence, declaring she would not re-enter it until he could finally drop all allusion to the subject.
With a half-curse on his lips—he, so temperate and sweet-tempered a man!—Mr. Grubb went straight to Newgate, and obtained an interview with the prisoner. It came to nothing satisfactory; Charles was harder in his obstinacy than ever. From thence Mr. Grubb drove back to the West End, to Chenevix House. Some morning visitors were there, and Lady Mary Cleveland was exhibiting her baby to them. Mr. Grubb admired with the rest, and then made a sign to Grace. She followed him into the next room.
"I don't see what is to be done," he began. "Adela will not hear a word, will not admit anything, and I can make nothing of Charles Cleveland. Upon my mentioning Adela—of course, only in hints; I could not accuse my wife outright to him—he interrupted me with a request that I would not introduce Lady Adela's name into so painful a matter; that he had brought the disgrace upon himself, and was prepared to pay for it. I think he may have lent the two notes to Adela. It would be only one hundred pounds out of the five. I cannot believe, if my wife were guilty, that Cleveland would take the penalty upon himself. Transportation for life, or whatever the sentence incurred may be, is no light matter, Grace."
Grace shuddered. "Do not let him incur the risk of it."
"I would rather cut off my right hand than punish a man unjustly, were he my greatest enemy. But unless I can get at the truth of this matter, and find proof that your view of it is correct, I shall have no plea, to my partner, to my bankers, or to my own conscience, for hushing it up; and the law must take its course."
"Alas! alas!" murmured Lady Grace.
"You seem to overlook my feelings in this affair, Grace," he whispered, a deep hue dyeing his cheeks. "That she may have had something to do with it, her paying away the notes proves: and to find the wife of your bosom thus in league with another—— You don't know what it is, Grace."
"I can imagine it," she answered, the tears standing in her eyes, as she rose to answer his adieu. "Believe me, you have, and always have had, my deepest and truest sympathy; but Adela is my sister; what more can I say?"
Grace sat on, alone. The murmur of voices came to her from the adjacent room, but she heeded it not. She leaned her head upon her hand, and debated with herself. It was imperative that the real facts of the case should be brought to light; for if Charles Cleveland were permitted to stand his trial, perhaps to suffer the penalty of transportation, and it came out, later, that he was innocent, and her sister the guilty party, what a fearful position would be that of Adela!
Could Charley not be brought to confess through stratagem, mentally debated Grace. Suppose he were led to believe that Adela, to save him, had declared the truth, then he might speak. It was surely a good idea. Grace weighed it, in all its bearings, and thought the end would justify the means. But to whom entrust so delicate a mission? Not to Mr. Cleveland, he would betray it all to Charles at the first sentence; not Mr. Grubb; his high sense of honour would never let him intimate that Adela had confessed what she had not; not to Lady Mary, for her only idea of Newgate was that it was a place overflowing with infectious fevers, which she should inevitably bring home to baby. Lord Acorn? Somehow Grace could not ask him. Who next? Who else was there?Herself?Yes, and Grace felt that none were more fitted for the task than she was—she who had the subject so much at heart. And she resolved to go.
But she could not go alone to Newgate. Her mother ought to be with her. Now the matter, relative to the tracing of the notes to Adela, had been kept from Lady Acorn. Grace disclosed it to her in the emergency, and made her the confidante of what she meant to do.
Lady Acorn sat aghast. For once in her life she was terrified to silence and meekness. Grace obtained her consent, and the time for the expedition was fixed. Not that Lady Acorn relished it.
"If it be as you and your father believe, Grace, Master Charley Cleveland deserves the soundest shaking man ever had yet," cried she, when speech returned to her.
"Ah, mamma! Then what must Adela deserve?"
"To be in Newgate herself," tartly responded Lady Acorn.
It was Monday morning. Charles Cleveland sat on his iron bedstead in his dreary cell in Newgate: of which cell he had become heartily tired by this time: chewing there in solitude the cud of his reflections, which came crowding one upon another. None of them were agreeable, as may be imagined, but pressing itself upon him more keenly than all, was the sensation of deep, dark disappointment. Above the discomfort of his present position, above the sense of shame endured, above the hard, degrading life that loomed for him in the future, he felt the neglect of Lady Adela. She, for whom he was bearing all the misery and disgrace in this dreadful dungeon, had never, by letter or by message, sought to convey a ray of sympathy to cheer him. The neglect, the indifference may have been unavoidable, but it told not the less bitterly on the spirit of the prisoner.
A noise at his cell door. The heavy key was turning in the lock, and the prisoner looked up eagerly—a visit was such a break in his dreary day. Two ladies were entering, and his heart beat wildly—wildly; for in the appearance of one he discerned some resemblance to Lady Adela's.Hadshe come to see him! and he had been so ungratefully blaming her! But the lady raised her veil, and he was recalled to his sober senses. It was only Grace Chenevix.
"So, Charles, an awful scrape you have brought yourself into, through your flirting nonsense with Adela!" began the Countess of Acorn, as she followed her daughter in.
"Now, mamma, dear mamma," implored Grace, in a whisper, "if you interfere, you will ruin all."
"Ruin all! much obliged to you, Grace! I think he has ruined himself," retorted the countess, in a shrill tone. Never famous for a sweet temper or a silent tongue, Lady Acorn was not improved by the trouble that had fallen on them, or by this distasteful expedition which she had been forced, so to say, to take this morning, for she could not allow Grace to come alone. The unhappy prisoner would reap the full benefit of her acrimony.
"I wonder you can look us in the face," she went on to him. "Had any one told me I should sometime walk through Newgate attended by turnkeys, I should have said it was a libel. We came down in a hack cab. I wouldn't have brought the servants here for the world."
"I shall ever feel grateful to you," breathed Charles.
"Oh, never mind about gratitude," unceremoniously interrupted Lady Acorn; "there's no time for it. Let us say what we have to say, Grace, and be gone. I'm all in a tremor, lest those men with keys should come and lock me up. Of course, Charles, you know it has all come out."
Charles looked up sharply.
"Which is more luck than you could have expected," added the countess, while Grace sat on thorns, lest some unlucky admission of her mother's should ruin all, as she had just phrased it, and unable to get a word in edgeways. "Of all brainless simpletons you are the worst. If Adela chose (like the thoughtless, wicked girl she is, though she is my daughter) to write her husband's name to a cheque, was that any reason why you should go hotheaded to work, and make believe you did it? Mr. Grubb is not your husband, and you have no right to his money. Things that the law will permit a wife to do with impunity, you might be run up to the drop for."
"Who has been saying this?" breathed the prisoner, bewildered with the torrent of words, and their signification. "Surely not Lady Adela."
"Charles," interposed Grace, and her quiet tones, after those of the countess, sounded like the lulling of a storm, "there is no necessity for further mystery, or for your continuing to assume the guilt; which, as my mother says, was an unwise step on your part——"
"I did not say unwise," sharply interrupted the countess; "call things by their right names, Lady Grace. It was insanity, and nobody but an idiot would have done it. That's what I said."
"The circumstances are known to us now," went on Grace, speaking quietly. "Poor Adela, at her wits' end for money, drew the cheque, and sent you to cash it. And then, terrified at what she had done, persuaded you to assume the responsibility."
"She did not persuade me," explained Charles, falling completely into the snare, and believing every word that was spoken, yet still anxious to excuse Lady Adela. "I volunteered to bear it. And I would do as much again."
"Charles—mamma, pray let me speak for a minute—had you been present when Adela wrote the cheque, you would been doubly to blame. She——"
Charles shook his head. "I was not present."
"She, poor thing, was excited at the moment, and incapable of reflection, but you ought to have recalled her to reason, and refused to aid in it—for her own sake."
"And of course I should," eagerly answered Mr. Charles, "had I known there was anything wrong about it. She brought me the cheque, ready filled in——"
"When you went up from the City for the cheque-book, on the Saturday morning. Yes, we know all."
"I declare I thought it was Mr. Grubb's writing, if ever I saw his writing in my life. I was not likely to have any other thought—how could I have? And I never recalled the matter to my mind, or knew anything more about it, till the Monday night, when I came up from Netherleigh: as I suppose Lady Adela has told you, if she has told you the rest."
"And then you undertook to shield her," interposed Lady Acorn, "and a glorious mess you have made of it between you. Grace, how you worry! you can speak when I have done. What she did would have been hushed up by her husband for all our sakes, but what you did was a very different matter. And the disgrace you have gratuitously brought upon yourself may yet be blazoned forth to every corner of the United Kingdom."
"And these are all the thanks I get," remarked Charles, striving to speak lightly.
"What other thanks would you like?" remarked the countess. "A service of plate presented to you? You deserve a testimonial, don't you, for having run your head into a noose of this dangerous kind for any woman! And for Adela, of all others, who cares for no one on earth but her blessed self. Not she."
"My mother is right," said Lady Grace, "and it may be as well, Charles, that you should know it. Adela has never cared for you in any way, except as an amusing boy, who could talk nonsense to her when she chose to condescend to listen. If you have thought anything else——"
"I never had a disloyal thought to Lady Adela," interrupted Charles, warmly. "Or to her husband—who has always been so kind to me. I would have warded all such—all ill—from her with my life."
"And nicely she has repaid you!" commented Lady Acorn. "Do you suppose she would have confessed this herself?—no, we found it out. She would have let you suffer, and never said 'Thank you.' I tell you this, Master Charley; and I hope you will let it prove to you what the smiles of a heartless butterfly of a married woman are worth."
He bit his dry and fevered lips with mortification—fevered forher. And Lady Acorn, after bestowing a few more unpalatable truths upon the unhappy prisoner, took her daughter's arm and hurried away, glad to escape from the place and the interview.
"A capital success we have had, Gracie," she cried, when they were outside the stone walls, "but it is all thanks to me. You would have beat about the bush, and palavered, and hesitated, and done no good. I got it out of him nicely—like the green sea-gull that the boy is. But, Grace, my child"—and Lady Acorn's voice for once grew hushed and solemn—"what in the world will be done with Adela?"
It was a painful scene, that in which they brought it home to Lady Adela. When Lady Acorn carried to her husband the news of Charles's unconscious avowal, he was struck almost dumb with consternation. The worst conclusion he had come to, in regard to some of the notes being traced to his daughter, was that she had but borrowed money from Charles Cleveland. Innocently? Yes; he could not and would not think she had any knowledge of how Charles became possessed of the notes. Lord Acorn, in spite of his perpetual embarrassments, and his not altogether straightforward shifts to evade them, possessed the true sense of honour that generally belongs to his order. He possessed it especially in regard to woman; and to find that his most favoured and favourite daughter had been guilty of theft; of—of—— He could not pursue the thought, as he sank down with his pain.
"We had better go to her, and hear what she has to plead in excuse, and—and—ascertain how far her peculations have gone," he said presently to his wife. "Perhaps there are more of them. Poor Grubb!"
So they went to Grosvenor Square, arm-in-arm, but sick at heart, and found Lady Adela alone. She was toying with a golden bird in a golden cage; gold at any rate in colour; a recent purchase. Her afternoon dress of muslin had golden-hued sprigs upon it, and there was much gilding of mirrors and other ornaments in the room, the taste of that day. A gay scene altogether, and Adela the gayest and prettiest object in it.
She was not quite as heartless, though, as appeared on the surface, or as Lady Acorn judged her to be. Adela was growing frightened. She was beginning to realize what it was she had done, and to wonder, in much self-torment, what would come of it. That Mr. Grubb would release Charles Cleveland she had not at first entertained the smallest doubt, or that the affair would be entirely hushed up. Charles would be true to her, never disclose her name, and there it would end. With this fond expectation she had buoyed herself up. But as the days went on, and Charles was still kept in Newgate, soon to be brought up for another examination preparatory to committal for trial, she grew alarmed. For the past day or two her uneasiness had been intolerable. Could she have saved Charles and his good name by confessing the truth, and run away for ever from the sight of men, she would have done it thankfully; but to take the guilt upon herself, and such debasing guilt,andremain before the world!—this was utterly repugnant, not to say impossible, to the proud heart of Lady Adela.
It was so unusual to see her father and mother come in together, and to see them both with solemn faces, that Adela's heart leaped, as the saying runs, into her mouth. Still, itmightnot portend any adverse meaning, and she rallied her courage.
"I want to make him sing," she cried, turning on them her bright and smiling face. "Did you ever see so beautiful a colour, papa? Ihopehe is not too beautiful to sing."
But there was no answering smile on the faces of either father or mother, only an increased solemnity. Lord Acorn, waving his hand towards the bird as if he would, wave off a too frivolous toy, touched her arm and pointed to a chair.
"Sit down, Adela."
She turned as white as death. Lady Acorn opened her lips to begin, a great wrath evidently upon them, but her lord and master imperatively waved his hand to her for silence, as he had just waved away the frivolous bird, and addressed his daughter.
"What is to become of you, Adela?"
She neither spoke nor moved. She sat back in an armchair, with her white and terror-stricken face. Her teeth began to chatter.
"How came you to do it?" he continued.
"To—to—do what?" she gasped.
"To do what!" screamed out Lady Acorn, utterly unable to control her tongue and her reproaches longer—"why, to rifle your husband's cheque-book of a cheque, and fill it in, and forge the firm's signature, and despatch that unsuspicious baby, Charles Cleveland, to cash it."
"Who—who says I did that?" asked Adela, making one last, hopeless, desperate effort to defend herself.
"Who——"
"Betsy, if you can't let me speak, you had better go away for a few minutes," cried Lord Acorn, arresting a fresh burst of eloquence from his wife. "That you did do this thing, Adela, is known now; some of the notes have been traced to you, all the particulars have been traced, and Charles Cleveland has confessed to them. Any denial you could attempt would be more idle than the chirping of that bird."
"Charles has confessed to them?" she whispered, taken aback by this blow. Nothing, save his confession, could have brought it absolutely home to her.
"Did you set up a fantastic hope that he would keep silence to the end, and go to his hanging to save you?" demanded Lady Acorn, defying her lord's wish to have the whole ball to himself. "Proofs came out against you, Madam Adela, as your father says; they were carried to Charles Cleveland, and he could but admit the truth."
"Whydid you do this terrible thing? That my daughter whom I have so loved, should be capable of sullying herself with such disgrace!" broke off Lord Acorn, with a wail. In good truth, it had been a blow to him, and one he had never bargained for. To play a little at Lady Sanely's for amusement, was one thing; he had, so to say, winked at that; but togambleand to steal money to pay her gambling debts, was quite another. "Adela, I could almost wish I had died before hearing of it."
Adela burst into tears. "I wanted the money so badly," she sobbed, hiding her face with her trembling hands. "I owed it—a great deal—to people at Lady Sanely's. I was at my wits' end, and Mr. Grubb would not give me any more. Oh, papa, forgive me! Can't it be hushed up?"
"Did you help yourself to more than that?" asked Lord Acorn.
"I do not understand," she faltered, not catching his meaning.
"Have you drawn or used any other false cheque?"
"Oh no, no; only that. Papa,won'tyou forgive me?"
He shook his head. No, he felt that he could not. "My forgiveness may not be of vital consequence to you, one way or the other, Adela," he remarked, with a groan, that he drowned by coughing. "The termination of this affair does not lie with me."
"It lies with my husband," she said in a low tone. "He will hush it up."
"It does not lie with him, Adela," sternly spoke Lord Acorn. "Had it been one of his private cheques, had you used his name only, it might in a great degree have rested with him—unless the bankers had taken it up."
"But you borrowed old Mr. Howard's name as well," struck in Lady Acorn; "and, if he pleases to be stern and obstinate, he can just place you where Charles Cleveland is, and you would have to stand your trial in the face and eyes of the world. A pretty disgrace for us all! A frightful calamity!"
Adela looked from one to the other, her face changing pitiably; now white as snow with fear, now hectic with emotion and shame.
"Mr. Grubb has full power in Leadenhall Street," she pleaded. "He will take care to shieldme."
"Are you sure of that?" quietly asked her father. "Has your conduct to him been such—I don't allude to this one pitiable instance, I speak of your treatment of him generally—has it been such that you can assume he will inevitably go out of his way to shield you, right or wrong?"
In spite of the miserable shame that filled her, a passing flush of triumph crossed her face. Ay! and her heart. What though shehadpersistently done her best to estrange her husband, with her provoking ways and her scornful contumely, very conscious felt she that she was all in all to him still. Why, had he not begged of her to confide this thing to him, and he would make it straight and guard her from exposure?
"I have nothing to fear from him, papa; I know it. It will be all right."
"How can you assert this in barefaced confidence, you wicked child?" groaned Lady Acorn. "I would not—no, I would not be so brazen for the world."
"Adela, don't deceive yourself with vain expectations; it may be harder for you in the end," interposed her father, once more making a deprecatory motion towards the place where his wife's tongue lay. "You are assuming a surety which you have no right to feel; better look the truth sternly in the face."
"I am his wife, papa," she faintly urged. "He will besureto shelter me."
"He may be able to shelter you from exposure; I doubt not but that he will do it, so far as he can, for his own sake as well as for yours; for all our sakes, indeed. But——"
"A few years ago you might have been hanged," struck in Lady Acorn. "Hanged outside Newgate. I can remember the time when death was the penalty for forgery. Dr. Dodd was hung for it. How would you have liked that?"
Adela did not say how she would have liked it. She was passing her hands nervously across her face, as if to keep down its pallor. As to Lord Acorn, he despaired of being allowed to finish any argument he might begin, and paced the room restlessly.
"But, though your husband may shield you from public exposure, it is too much to hope that he will absolve you from consequences, and I think you will have to face and bear them," recommenced Lord Acorn, talking while he walked. "Had my wife served me as you have served Grubb, I should have put her away from me for ever; and I tell it you, Adela, before her as she stands there, though she is your mother."
"And served me right, too," commented Lady Acorn.
"How do you mean, papa?" gasped Adela.
"My meaning ought to be plain enough," was Lord Acorn's angry reproof. "Are you wilfully shutting your eyes to the nature of the offence you have sullied yourself with?—its degradation?—its sin?" he sharply questioned. "There's hardly a worse in our criminal code, that I know of, except murder."
"But I do not understand," she faintly reiterated. "If my husband absolves me, who else——"
"He may absolve you so far as the general public goes, shield you from that penalty," was the impatient interruption; "but not from your offence to himself. In my judgment, you must not look for that."
Adela did not answer. She glanced at her father questioningly, with an imploring look.
"A man has put his wife away from him for a much less cause than this," continued Lord Acorn. "And your husband, I fancy, must have been already pretty nigh tired out. What has your conduct been to him, Adela, ever since your marriage?"
She bent her head, her face flushing. To be taken to task by her father was a bitter pill, in addition to all the other discomfort.
"It has been shameful!" emphatically pronounced Lord Acorn. "For my part, I marvel that Grubb has borne it. But that I make it a rule not to interfere with my daughters, once they have left my roof for that of a husband, I should not have borne it tamely for him; and that I now tell you, Adela. One or two hints that I have given you from time to time you have disregarded."
"He has borne with her and indulged her to the top of her bent, when he ought to have taken her by the shoulders and shaken her insolence out of her," nodded the mother.
"Had you been a loving wife, Adela, things might have a better chance of going well with you," pursued her father, with another motion of the hand. "But, remembering what your treatment of your husband has persistently been, you can have no plea for praying leniency of him now, or he much inclination to accord it."
Lady Adela would have liked to give her head a saucy toss. She knew better; her father could not judge of her husband as she could. "Francis can't beat me," she thought. "He can lecture me, andwill; and I must bear it meekly for once, under the circumstances."
She looked up at her father.
"My husband is very fond of me, in spite of all," she whispered.
"Yes; he is fond of you," returned Lord Acorn, with emotion. "Too fond. His behaviour to you proves that. Why, how much money have you had of him, drawn from him by your wiles, beyond your large legitimate allowance?"
Adela did not answer. "Has he spoken of it?" she asked, the question occurring to her.
"No, he has not spoken of it; he is not the man to speak of it. I gather so much from your sisters: they talk of it among themselves. One might have thought that your husband's kindness to you would have won your regard, had nothing else done it. It strikes me all that will be over now," concluded Lord Acorn.
Adela answered by a sobbing sigh.
"You have been on the wrong tack for some time now," he resumed, as an afterthought. "Who but a silly-minded woman would have made herself ridiculous, as you have, by flirting with a boy like Charles Cleveland? Do——"
"Oh, papa! You cannot think for a moment I meant anything!" she exclaimed, her cheeks flushing hotly.
"Except to vex your husband. Do you think your foolishness—I could call it by a harsher name—did not give sorrow to myself and your mother? We had deemed you sensible, honourable, open as the day: not the hard-hearted, frivolous woman you have turned out to be. Well, Adela, people generally have to reap what they sow: and I fear your harvest will not be a pleasant one."
She pressed her trembling hands together.
"Where are you going?" inquired Lady Acorn, as her husband took his hat up.
"To Leadenhall Street—to Grubb. Some one must apprise him of this dreadful truth; and I suppose it falls to me to do it—and a most distressing task it is. Would you have allowed young Cleveland to stand his trial?—to have suffered the penalty of the crime?" broke off Lord Acorn to his daughter.
"It would never have come to that, papa."
"But it would have come to that; it was coming to it. I ask, would you have allowed an innocent lad to be sent over the seas for you?"
Adela shuddered. "I must have spoken then," was her faint answer.
Lord Acorn, jumping into a cab, proceeded to Leadenhall Street, to make this wretched confession to his son-in-law. Had he been making it of himself, he would have felt it less. He was, however, spared the task. Mr. Grubb was not in the City, and Mr. Grubb already knew the truth.
It chanced that, close upon the departure of Lady Acorn and her daughter Grace from Charles Cleveland's cell that morning, Serjeant Mowham was shown into it: and the reader may as well be reminded that the learned serjeant had not taken up Charles's case in his professional capacity, but simply as an anxious friend. Without going into details, Charles told him that the truth had now come out, his innocence was made apparent to those concerned, and he hoped he should soon see the last of the precious walls he was incarcerated within. Away rushed Serjeant Mowham to Leadenhall Street, asking an explanation of Messrs. Grubb and Howard; and very much surprised did he feel at finding those gentlemen knew nothing.
"I am positive it is a fact," persisted the serjeant to them. "One cannot mistake Charley's changed tones and looks. Some evidence that exculpates him has turned up, rely upon it, and I thought, of course, you must know what it was. Lady Acorn and one of her daughters went out from him just before I got there."
Mr. Grubb felt curious; rather uneasy. If Charles Cleveland was exonerated, who had been the culprit?
"I shall go and see him at once," he said to Mr. Howard.
And now Charles Cleveland fell into another error. Never supposing but that Mr. Grubb must know at least as much as Lady Acorn knew, he unconsciously betrayed all. In his eagerness to show his kind patron he was not quite the ungrateful wretch he appeared to be, he betrayed it.
"I never thought of such a thing, sir, as that it was not your cheque—I mean your own signature," he pleaded. "I wouldn't have done such a thing for all the world—and after all your goodness to me for so many months! It was only when I came up from Netherleigh on the Monday evening I found there was something wrong with it."
"You heard it from Lady Adela," spoke Mr. Grubb, quietly accepting the mistake.
"Yes. She told me how it was. Mr. Howard was with you then in the dining-room, and his coming had frightened her. She seemed in dreadful distress, and I promised to shield her as far as I could."
"You should have confided the truth to me," interrupted Mr. Grubb. "All trouble might have been avoided."
"But how could I?—and after my voluntary promise to Lady Adela! What would you have thought of me, sir, had I shifted the blame from myself to lay it upon her?" added Charley, lifting his ingenuous, honest eyes to his master's.
Mr. Grubb did not say what he should have thought. Charles rather misinterpreted the silence: he fancied Mr. Grubb must be angry with him.
"Of course it has been a heavy blow to me, the being accused of such a thing, and to have had to accept the accusation, and to lie here in Newgate, with no prospect before me but transportation; but I ask you what else I could do, sir? I could not clear myself at the expense of Lady Adela."
Mr. Grubb did not answer this appeal. Telling Charles that steps should be taken for his release, and enjoining him to absolute silence as regarded Lady Adela's name, he returned to Leadenhall Street, and held a private conference with his partner.
What passed at it was known only to themselves, or how far Francis Grubb found it necessary to speak of his wife. Mr. Howard noticed one thing—that the young man (young, as compared with himself) looked at moments utterly bewildered; once or twice he talked at random. The following morning was the one fixed for Charles's second examination before Sir Turtle Kite, when, that worthy alderman being satisfied, he must of course be released.
Barely was the conference over and this resolution fixed upon, when a most urgent summons came to Mr. Grubb from Blackheath—his mother was supposed to be dying. He started off without the loss of a moment. And when, some time later, the Earl of Acorn arrived, he found only Mr. Howard, and learnt from him that Charles would be discharged on the following morning.
Just for a moment we must return to Adela. When Lady Acorn left her—after exhausting her whole vocabulary in the art of scolding, and waiting to drink some tea she asked for, for her lips were parched—Adela buried her face on the gold-coloured satin sofa-cushion, and indulged her repentance to her heart's content. It was sincere—and bitter. Were the time to come over again—oh, that it could!—far rather would she cut off her right hand than do what she had done; she would die, rather than do such a thing again. It was altogether a dreadful prospect yet—at least, it might be. What if they would not exonerate Charley without inculpating her? Not her husband; she did not fear him; old Howard, and the bankers, and those aldermen on the bench? How should she meet it? where should she run to? what would the world say of her? Lady Adela started from the cushion affrighted. Her lips were more parched than her mother's had been, and she rang for some tea on her own score.
She sat back in her chair after drinking it, her pretty hands lying listless on her pretty dress, and tried to think matters out. As soon as her husband came home she would throw herself upon his bosom and confess all, and plead for mercy with tears and kisses as she had never pleaded before, and give him her word never to touch another card, and whisper that in future she would be his dear wife. He would not refuse to forgive her; no fear of that; he would tell her not to be naughty again, and make all things right. She would tell him that she might have loved him from the first, for it was the truth, but that she steeled her heart and her temper against him, because of his name and of his being a City man; and she would tell him that she could and should love him from henceforth, that the past was past, and they would be as happy together as the day was long.
A yearning impatience grew upon her for his return as she sat and thought thus. What hour was it? Surely he was at home sometimes earlier than this!
As she turned her head to look at the timepiece on the marble console, Hilson came in, a note on his small silver salver.
"One of the clerks brought it up from Leadenhall Street, my lady," he remarked, as he held it out to her. "He said there was no answer."
It was not her husband's writing, and Lady Adela opened it with trembling fingers. Had some now and dreadful phase turned up in this unhappy business? The fear, that it had, flashed through her.