CHAPTER XLV.
A thrill of admiration for John Keith’s magnanimity ran along the nerves of every one, and Cecil Laurens felt shamed and remorseful.
“He carries out to the letter his promise to love and cherish her for better or worse,” he thought. “Alas, that I did not do so with my poor little girl-bride, whose youth might have been some excuse for her faults. Shall I ever find her again, and, if so, will she forgive me for my coldness and distrust?”
He looked fixedly at Louise, who nestled close to her husband’s side, as if finding in his fidelity some comfort under the storm of indignation that had burst on her head.
“Madame,” he said, coldly, “perhaps you carried your treachery so far that you were the cause of my young wife’s flight from The Acacias. Perhaps you could tell me, if you would, where to find her now?”
She started and flushed crimson, flashing him a sullen, angry glance.
“I can not,” she answered, bitterly.
“You mean that you will not,” he said, and she nodded defiantly.
“Come, Louise,” interposed her husband, “if you know anything that will help to condone the wrong you have done, do not withhold it. You must remember that you are amenable to the law for your sin, although Mr. Laurens will not prosecute you, perhaps, if you will help him find his wronged wife.”
That hint was timely. It frightened the wickedwoman, and opened her lips, despite the malice that would have sealed them to the truth.
She grew pale and looked at Cecil Laurens, half pleadingly.
“If I tell you all I know, will you spare me?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Very well. Your wife is in England. She had relatives there, and when she left you she went to them. She is living with them still, and your son, born a few weeks after she left you, is a handsome little fellow of four years.”
Cecil Laurens grew pale with emotion, and his mother whispered to Doctor Laurens:
“So, I am a grandmother. I think I shall begin to wear caps.”
Cecil spoke abruptly:
“And these relatives of my wife—humble people, of course, but dear to me for the care they have given my darling—their names, Mrs. Keith?”
She started and flushed. It was the first time since her secret marriage, six years ago, that any one had ever called her by her husband’s name. Conquering the strange emotion it awoke in her breast, she answered:
“I do not know, but I will give you the London address of Florine Dabol, who used to be her maid. Florine was in my service, and helped to alienate your wife from you and drive her away. She knew where she went, but she kept it a secret in order to extort money from me. I hope you will punishherfor her wickedness, for she has been bleeding me all these years, until between the support of my child and payingher hush-money over and over, the allowance I had from my aunt was spent, until I could barely dress myself decently.”
She drew a pencil from her pocket, and rapidly, though with a shaking hand, wrote on a slip of paper Florine Dabol’s address.
“That is where I send her money,” she said, handing it to Cecil Laurens.
He took it with a courteous bow and a word of thanks.
“Now you have done all that you can to make amends, Louise, we will go. Of course Mr. Laurens will be anxious to see you gone,” said John Keith, sadly.
“On the contrary, Mr. Keith, I beg that you, with your wife and child, will accept the hospitality of Maple Shade for tonight at least,” answered Cecil Laurens, gravely; for he said to himself that he had no quarrel with John Keith, who had himself endured such bitter suffering through a woman’s ambition.
John Keith declined gratefully, but decisively, the offered hospitality.
“We will go now,” he added.
Old Mrs. Barry—perhaps taking a lesson in politeness from Cecil—said, carelessly:
“You may go to Ferndale, Louise, and get your clothes and everything that belongs to you personally, for you will never see a penny of my money.”
“I do not want it, for it has been the curse of my life! It tempted me, and made me the sinner that I am!” Louise answered, bitterly, as she turned away, and without a word of farewell to any one, left the house which she had entered so proudly but a little while ago.
Perhaps the hard old aunt remembered those words and reflected on them; for when she died, several years later, it was found that, after a legacy of twenty thousand dollars to Cecil Laurens’ wife, she had given twenty thousand to John Keith, and Ferndale and all her other estates to her grandniece, little Lucy Keith.
“It will keep the money in the family; and John Keith is a good man, and deserves something for taking Louise back after all her wickedness, and trying to make a good woman out of such poor material,” she wrote.
To her servants each she left a small legacy of five hundred dollars, which made them very grateful and happy; and they forgot all her faults, and lauded “Ole Mistis” to the skies.
Ferndale was shut up for a long time, and then sold, for John Keith could never bring his family back to the county where the story of his wife’s wicked schemes was for years a subject of gossip.
“I shall leave here as soon as I can make some arrangements for mother and Dot,” Cecil said, when he had bidden John Keith farewell and God-speed. “I must lose no time in seeking my wife, and revealing to her my knowledge of the treachery that parted us.”
It touched him to see his stately mother sobbing forlornly in Dot’s sympathizing arms. He knew it was sorrow and remorse for her hardness to his wife.
“Do not fret, mother. She was such a loving little soul, I am sure she will forgive you when she finds that you are sorry,” he said, gently.
“I will write to her, Cecil, as soon as you find her. I will humble myself as I deserve to do until I win her pardon,” she sobbed.
“And I, too!” Mrs. Barry exclaimed, dashing a suspicious moisture from her eyes. “Dear girl! I always loved her until Louise set me against her. I would have pardoned her that night when she asked me so sweetly, only my wicked niece hustled me out of the room before I could answer the poor child!”