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 thereishope.”
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 tones 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.
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.
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?Shewas the daughter of an officer in the Navy;shehad 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.
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 thatshemay 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.
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 toher?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 toyou. 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.