CHAPTER IX.LITERA SCRIPTA MANET.

Thehouse and grounds were in such perfect order that there was very little to be done in the way of preparation for the honeymoon visitors. Even the pianos had been periodically tuned, and the clocks had been regularly wound. Two or three servants would have to be engaged for the period, and that was all; and even this want Mrs. Dawson proposed to supply without going off the premises.

The housemaid had a sister, who was an accomplished parlourmaid and carver; the under-gardener’s eldest daughter was pining for a preliminary canter in the kitchen, and the gardener’s wife was a retired cook, and would be delighted to take all the rougher part of the cooking, while Mrs. Dawson devoted her art to those pretty tiny kickshaws in which she excelled. There were peaches ripening in the peach-house, and the apricots were going tobe a show. There was wine in the cellar that would have satisfied an alderman on his honeymoon. Mildred’s business at The Hook might have been completed in a day, yet she lingered there for a week, and still lingered on, loving the place with a love which was mingled with pain, yet happier there than she could have been anywhere else in the world, she thought.

The chief gardener rowed her about the river, never going very far from home, but meandering about the summer stream, by flowery meadows, and reedy eyots, and sometimes diverging into a tributary stream, where the shallow water seemed only an excuse for wild flowers. He had rowed her up and down those same streams when she was a child with streaming hair and he was the under-gardener. He had rowed her about in that brief summer season when Fay was her companion.

She revisited all those spots in which she had wandered with her lover. She would land here or there along the island, and as she remembered each particular object in the landscape, her feet seemed to grow light again, with the lightness of joyousyouth, as they touched the familiar shore. It was almost as if her youth came back to her.

Thus it was that she lingered from day to day, loth to leave the beloved place. She wrote frankly to her aunt, saying how much good the change of air and scene had done her, and promising to return to Brighton in a few days. She felt that it was her duty to resume her place beside that fading existence; and yet it was an infinite relief to her to escape from that dull gray house, and the dull gray life. She acknowledged to herself that her aunt’s life was a good life, full of unselfish work and large charity, and yet there was something that repelled her, even while she admired. It was too much like a life lived up to a certain model, adjusted line by line to a carefully-studied plan. There was a lack of spontaneity, a sense of perpetual effort. The benevolence which had made Enderby village like one family in the sweet time that was gone had been of a very different character. There had been the warmth of love and sympathy in every kindness of George Greswold’s, and there had been infinite pity for wrong-doers. Miss Fausset’s almsgiving wasafter the fashion of the Pharisee of old, and it was upon the amount given that she held herself justified before God, not upon the manner of giving.

In those quiet days, spent alone in her old home, Mildred had chosen to occupy Mr. Fausset’s study rather than the large bright drawing-room. The smaller room was more completely associated with her father. It was here—seated in the chair before the writing-table, where she was sitting now—that he had first talked to her of George Greswold, and had discussed her future life, questioning his motherless girl with more than a father’s tenderness about the promptings of her own heart. She loved the room and all that it contained for the sake of the cherished hands that had touched these things, and the gentle life that had been lived here. There had been but one error in his life, she thought—his treatment of Fay.

“He ought not to have sent her away,” she thought; “he saw us happy together, his two daughters, and he ought not to have divided us, and sent her away to a loveless life among strangers.If he had only been frank and straightforward with my mother she might have forgiven all.”

Might, perhaps. Mildred was not sure upon that point; but she felt very sure that it was her father’s duty to have braved all consequences rather than to have sent his unacknowledged child into exile. That fact of not acknowledging her seemed in itself such a tremendous cruelty that it intensified every lesser wrong.

Mrs. Dawson understood her mistress’s fancy for her father’s room, and Mildred’s meals were served here, at a Sutherland-table in the bay-window, from which she could see the boats go by, Mrs. Dawson having a profound belief in the efficacy of the boats as a cure for low spirits.

“People sometimes tell me it must be dull at The Hook,” she said; “but, lor! they don’t know how many boats go by in summer-time. It’s almost as gay as Bond Street.”

Mildred lived alone with old memories in the flower-scented room, where the Spanish blinds made a cool and shadowy atmosphere, while the roses outside were steeped in sunshine. Those few dayswere just the most perfect summer days of the year. She felt sorry that they had not been reserved for Pamela’s honeymoon. Such sunshine was almost wasted on her, whose heart was so full of sadness.

It was her last afternoon at The Hook, or the afternoon which she meant to be her last, having made up her mind to go back to Brighton and duty on the following day, and she had a task before her, a task which she had delayed from day to day, just as she had delayed her return to her aunt.

She had to put away those special and particular objects which had belonged to her father and mother, and had been a part of their lives. These were too sacred to be left about now that strangers were to occupy the rooms of the dead. Hitherto no stranger had entered those rooms since John Fausset’s death, nothing had been removed or altered. No documents relating to property or business of any kind had been kept at The Hook. Mr. Fausset’s affairs had all been put in perfect order after his wife’s death, and there had been no ransacking for missing title-deeds or papers of any kind. It had been understood that all papers and letters of importancewere either with Mr. Fausset’s solicitors or at the house in Parchment Street, and thus the household gods had been undisturbed in the summer retreat by the river.

Mildred had spent the morning in her mother’s rooms, putting away all those dainty trifles and prettinesses which had gathered round the frivolous, luxurious life, as shells and bright-coloured weeds gather among the low rocks on the edge of the sea. She had placed everything carefully in a large closet in her mother’s dressing-room, covered with much tissue-paper, secure from dust and moth; and now she began the same kind of work in her father’s room, the work of removing all those objects which had been especially his: the old-fashioned silver inkstand, the well-worn scarlet morocco blotting-book, with his crest on the cover, and many inkspots on the leather lining inside, his penholders and penknives, and a little velvet pen-wiper which she had made for him when she was ten years old, and which he had kept on his table ever afterwards.

She looked round the room thoughtfully for a place of security for these treasures. She had spenta good deal of time in rearranging her father’s books, which careful and conscientious dusting had reduced to a chaotic condition. Now every volume was in its place, just as he had kept them in the old days when it had been her delight to examine the shelves and to carry away a book of her father’s choosing.

The bookcases were by Chippendale, with fretwork cornices and mahogany panelling. The lower part was devoted to cupboards, which her father had always kept under lock and key, but which she supposed to contain only old magazines, pamphlets, and newspapers, part of that vast mass of literature which is kept with a view to being looked at some day, and which finally drifts unread to the bourne of all waste paper, and is ground into pulp again, and rolls over the endless web again, and comes back upon the world printed with more intellectual food for the million of skippers and skimmers.

Yes, one of those mahogany panelled cupboards would serve Mildred’s purpose admirably. She selected a key from one of the bunches in her key-box, and opened the cupboard nearest the door.

It was packed tight withArmy Lists,New Monthly Magazines, andEdinburgh Reviews—packed so well that there was scarcely an interstice that would hold a pin. She opened the next cupboard.Sporting Magazine,Blackwood,Ainsworth, and a pile of pamphlets. No room there.

She opened the third, and found it much more loosely packed, with odd newspapers, and old Prayer Books and Bibles: shabby, old-fashioned books, which had served for the religious exercises of several generations of Faussets, and had been piously preserved by the owner of The Hook. There was room here perhaps for the things in the writing-table, if all these books and papers were rearranged and closely packed.

Mildred began her work patiently. She was in no hurry to have done with her task; it brought her nearer to her beloved dead. She worked slowly, dreamily almost, her thoughts dwelling on the days that were gone.

She took out the Prayer Books and Bibles one by one, looking at a fly-leaf now and then. John Fausset, from his loving mother, on the day of hisconfirmation, June 17, 1835; Lucy Jane Fausset, with her sister Maria’s love, April 3, 1804; Mark Fausset, in memory of little Charlie, December 1, 1807. Such inscriptions as these touched her, with their reminiscences of vanished affection, of hearts long mingled with the dust.

She put the books on one side in a little pile on the carpet, as she knelt before the open cupboard, and then she began to move the loose litter of newspapers. TheMorning Herald, theMorning Chronicle, theSun. Eventhesewere of the dead.

The cupboard held much more than she had expected. Behind the newspapers there were two rows of pigeons-holes, twenty-six in all, filled—choke-full, some of them—with letters, folded longwise, in a thoroughly business-like manner.

Old letters, old histories of the family heart and mind, how much they hold to stir the chords of love and pain! Mildred’s hand trembled as she stretched it out to take one of those letters, idly, full of morbid curiosity about those relics of a past life.

She never knew whether it had been deliberation or hazard which guided her hand to the sixth pigeon-hole,but she thought afterwards that her eye must have been caught by a bit of red ribbon—a spot of bright colour—and that her hand followed her eye mechanically. However this may have been, the first thing that she took from the mass of divers correspondence in the twenty-six pigeon-holes was a packet of about twenty letters tied with a red ribbon.

Each letter was carefully indorsed “M. F.” and a date. Some were on foreign paper, others on thick gilt-edged note. A glance at the uppermost letter showed her a familiar handwriting—her aunt’s, but very different from Miss Fausset’s present precise penmanship. The writing here was more hurried and irregular, bolder, larger, and more indicative of impulse and emotion.

No thought of possible wrong to her aunt entered Mildred’s mind as she untied the ribbon and seated herself in a low chair in front of the bookcase, with the letters loose in her lap. What secrets could there be in a girl’s letters to her elder brother which the brother’s daughter might not read, nearly forty years after they were written? What could therebe in that yellow paper, in that faded ink, except the pale dim ghosts of vanished fancies, and thoughts which the thinker had long outlived?

“I wonder whether my aunt would care to read these old letters?” mused Mildred. “It would be like calling up her own ghost. She must have almost forgotten what she was like when she wrote them.”

The first letter was from Milan, full of enthusiasm about the Cathedral and the Conservatoire, full of schemes for work. She was practising six hours a day, and taking nine lessons a week—four for piano, two for singing, three for harmony. She was in high spirits, and delighted with her life.

“I should practise eight hours a day if Mrs. Holmby would let me,” she wrote, “but she won’t. She says it would be too much for my health. I believe it is only because my piano annoys her. I get up at five on these summer mornings, and practise from six to half-past eight; then coffee and rolls, and off to the Conservatoire; then a drive with Mrs. Holmby, who is too lazy to walk much; and then lunch. After lunch vespers at the Cathedral,and then two hours at the piano before dinner. An hour and a half between dinner and tea, which we take at nine. Sometimes one of Mrs. Holmby’s friends drops in to tea. You needn’t be afraid: the men are all elderly, and not particularly clean. They take snuff, and their complexions are like mahogany; but there is one old man, with bristly gray hair standing out all over his head like a brush, who plays the ’cello divinely, and who reminds me of Beethoven. I am learning the ‘Sonate Pathétique,’ and I play Bach’s preludes and fugues two hours a day. We went to La Scala the night before last; but I was disappointed to find they were playing a trumpery modern opera by a Milanese composer, who is all the rage here.”

Two or three letters followed, all in the same strain, and then came signs of discontent.

“I have no doubt Mrs. Holmby is a highly respectable person, and I am sure you acted for the best when you chose her for my chaperon, but she is a lump of prejudice. She objects to the Cathedral. ‘We are fully justified in making ourselves familiar with its architectural beauties,’ she said, in herpedantic way, ‘but to attend the services of that benighted church is to worship in the groves of Baal.’ I told her that I had found neither groves nor idols in that magnificent church, and that the music I heard there was the only pleasure which reconciled me to the utter dulness of my life at Milan—I was going to say my life with her, but thought it better to be polite, as I am quite in her power till you come to fetch me.“Don’t think that I am tired of the Conservatoire, after teasing you so to let me come here, or even that I am home-sick. I am only tired of Mrs. Holmby; and I daresay, after all, she is no worse than any other chaperon would be. As for the Conservatoire, I adore it, and I feel that I am making rapid strides in my musical education. My master is pleased with my playing of the ‘Pathétique,’ and I am to take the ‘Eroica’ next. What a privilege it is to know Beethoven! He seems to me now like a familiar friend. I have been reading a memoir of him. What a sad life—what a glorious legacy he leaves the world which treated him so badly!“I play Diabelli’s exercises for an hour and ahalf every morning, before I look at any other music.”

“Don’t think that I am tired of the Conservatoire, after teasing you so to let me come here, or even that I am home-sick. I am only tired of Mrs. Holmby; and I daresay, after all, she is no worse than any other chaperon would be. As for the Conservatoire, I adore it, and I feel that I am making rapid strides in my musical education. My master is pleased with my playing of the ‘Pathétique,’ and I am to take the ‘Eroica’ next. What a privilege it is to know Beethoven! He seems to me now like a familiar friend. I have been reading a memoir of him. What a sad life—what a glorious legacy he leaves the world which treated him so badly!

“I play Diabelli’s exercises for an hour and ahalf every morning, before I look at any other music.”

In the next letter Mildred started at the appearance of a familiar name.

“Your kind suggestion about the Opera House has been followed, and we have taken seats at La Scala for two nights a week. Signor Castellani’s opera is really very charming. I have heard it now three times, and liked it better each time. There is not much learning in the orchestration; but there is a great deal of melody all through the opera. The Milanese are mad about it. Signor Castellani came to see Mrs. Holmby one evening last week, introduced by our gray-haired ’cello-player. He is a clever-looking man, about five-and-thirty, with a rather melancholy air. He writes his librettos, and is something of a poet.“We have made a compromise about the Cathedral. I am to go to vespers if I like, as my theological opinions are not in Mrs. Holmby’s keeping. She will walk with me to the Cathedral, leave me at the bottom of the steps, do her shopping or take a gentle walk, and return for me when theservice is over. It only lasts three-quarters of an hour, and Mrs. Holmby always has shopping of some kind on her hands, as she does all her own marketing, and buys everything in the smallest quantities. I suppose by this means she makes more out of your handsome allowance for my board—or fancies she does.”

“We have made a compromise about the Cathedral. I am to go to vespers if I like, as my theological opinions are not in Mrs. Holmby’s keeping. She will walk with me to the Cathedral, leave me at the bottom of the steps, do her shopping or take a gentle walk, and return for me when theservice is over. It only lasts three-quarters of an hour, and Mrs. Holmby always has shopping of some kind on her hands, as she does all her own marketing, and buys everything in the smallest quantities. I suppose by this means she makes more out of your handsome allowance for my board—or fancies she does.”

There were more letters in the same strain, and Castellani’s name appeared often in relation to his operas; but there was no further mention of social intercourse. The letters grew somewhat fretful in tone, and there were repeated complaints of Mrs. Holmby. There were indications of fitful spirits—now enthusiasm, now depression.

“I have at least discovered that I am no genius,” she wrote. “When I attempt to improvise, the poverty of my ideas freezes me; and yet music with me is a passion. Those vesper services in the Cathedral are my only consolation in this great dull town.“No, dear Jack, I am not home-sick. I have to finish my musical education. I am tired of nothing, except Mrs. Holmby.”

“No, dear Jack, I am not home-sick. I have to finish my musical education. I am tired of nothing, except Mrs. Holmby.”

After this there was an interval. The next letter was dated six months later. It was on a different kind of paper, and it was written from Evian, on the Lake of Geneva. Even the character of the penmanship had altered. It had lost its girlish dash, and something of its firmness. The strokes were heavier, but yet bore traces of hesitation. It was altogether a feebler style of writing.

The letter began abruptly:

“I know that you have been kind to me, John—kinder, more merciful than many brothers would have been under the same miserable circumstances; but nothing you can do can make me anything else than what I have made myself—the most wretched of creatures. When I walk about in this quiet place, alone, and see the beggars holding out their hands to me, maimed, blind, dumb perhaps, the very refuse of humanity, I feel that their misery is less than mine.Theywere not brought up to think highly of themselves, and to look down upon other people, as I was.Theywere never petted and admired as I was. They were not brought up tothink honour the one thing that makes life worth living—to feel the sting of shame worse than the sting of death. They fall into raptures if I give them a franc—and all the wealth of the world would not give me one hour of happiness. You tell me to forget my misery. Forget—now! No, I have no wish to leave this place. I should be neither better nor happier anywhere else. It is very quiet here. There are no visitors left now in the neighbourhood. There is no one to wonder who I am, or why I am living alone here in my tiny villa. The days go by like a long weary dream, and there are days when the gray lake and the gray mountains are half hidden in mist, and when all Nature seems of the same colour as my own life.“I received the books you kindly chose for me, a large parcel. There is a novel among them which tells almost my own story. It made me shed tears for the first time since you left me at Lausanne. Some people say they find a relief in tears, but my tears are not of that kind. I was ill for nearly a week after reading that story. Please don’t send me any more novels. If they are about happy people theyirritate me; if they are sorrowful stories they make me just a shade more wretched than I am always. If you send me books again let them be the hardest kind of reading you can get. I hear there is a good book on natural history by a man called Darwin. I should like to read that.—Gratefully and affectionately your sister,M. F.”

“I received the books you kindly chose for me, a large parcel. There is a novel among them which tells almost my own story. It made me shed tears for the first time since you left me at Lausanne. Some people say they find a relief in tears, but my tears are not of that kind. I was ill for nearly a week after reading that story. Please don’t send me any more novels. If they are about happy people theyirritate me; if they are sorrowful stories they make me just a shade more wretched than I am always. If you send me books again let them be the hardest kind of reading you can get. I hear there is a good book on natural history by a man called Darwin. I should like to read that.—Gratefully and affectionately your sister,

M. F.”

This letter was dated October. The next was written in November from the same address.

“No, my dear John, your fears were unfounded, I have not been ill. I wish I had been—sick unto death! I have been too wretched to write, that was all. Why should I distress you with a reiteration of my misery—and Icannotwrite, or think about anything else? I have no doubt Darwin’s book is good, but I could not interest myself in it. The thought of my own misery comes between me and every page I read.“You ask me what I mean to do with my life when my dark days are over. To that question there can but be one answer. I mean, so far as it is possible, to forget. I shall go down to my grave burdened with my dismal secret; but I shall exerciseevery faculty I possess to keep that secret to the end.Heis not likely to betray me. The knowledge of his own baseness will seal his lips.“Your suggestion of a future home in some quiet village, either in England or abroad, is kindly meant, I know, but I shudder at the mere idea of such a life. To pass as a widow; to have to answer every prying acquaintance—the doctor, the clergyman—people who would force themselves upon me, however secluded my life might be; to devote myself to a duty which in every hour of my existence would remind me of my folly and of my degradation: I should live like the galley-slave who drags his chain at every step.“You tell me that the tie which would be a sorrow in the beginning might grow into a blessing. That could never be. You know very little of a woman’s nature when you suggest such a possibility. Whatcanyour sex know of a woman’s agony under such circumstances as mine?Youare never made to feel the sting of dishonour.”

“You ask me what I mean to do with my life when my dark days are over. To that question there can but be one answer. I mean, so far as it is possible, to forget. I shall go down to my grave burdened with my dismal secret; but I shall exerciseevery faculty I possess to keep that secret to the end.Heis not likely to betray me. The knowledge of his own baseness will seal his lips.

“Your suggestion of a future home in some quiet village, either in England or abroad, is kindly meant, I know, but I shudder at the mere idea of such a life. To pass as a widow; to have to answer every prying acquaintance—the doctor, the clergyman—people who would force themselves upon me, however secluded my life might be; to devote myself to a duty which in every hour of my existence would remind me of my folly and of my degradation: I should live like the galley-slave who drags his chain at every step.

“You tell me that the tie which would be a sorrow in the beginning might grow into a blessing. That could never be. You know very little of a woman’s nature when you suggest such a possibility. Whatcanyour sex know of a woman’s agony under such circumstances as mine?Youare never made to feel the sting of dishonour.”

A light began to dawn on Mildred as she read this second letter from Evian. The first might meananything—an engagement broken off, a proud girl jilted by a worthless lover, the sense of degradation that a woman feels in having loved unwisely—in having wasted confidence and affection upon an unworthy object: Mildred had so interpreted that despairing letter. But the second revealed a deeper wound, a darker misery.

There were sentences that stood out from the context with unmistakable meaning. “When my dark days are over”—“to pass as a widow”—“to devote myself to a duty which would remind me of my folly and my degradation.”

That suggestion of a secluded life—of a care which should grow into a blessing—could mean only one thing. The wretched girl who wrote that letter was about to become a mother, under conditions which meant life-long dishonour.

White as marble, and with hands that trembled convulsively as they held the letter, Mildred Greswold read on, hurriedly, eagerly, breathlessly, to the last line of the last letter. She had no scruples, no sense of wrong-doing. The secret hidden in that little packet of letters was a secret which she had aright to know—she above all other people, she who had been cheated and fooled by false imaginings.

The third letter from Evian was dated late in January:

“I have been very ill—dangerously, I believe—but my doctor took unnecessary trouble to cure me. I am now able to go out of doors again, and I walk by the lake for half-an-hour every day in the morning sun. The child thrives wonderfully, I am told; but if there is to be a change of nurses, as there must be—for this woman here must lose sight of her charge and of me when I leave this place—the change cannot be made too soon. If Boulogne is really the best place you can think of, your plan would be to meet me with the nurse at Dijon, where we can take the rail. We shall post from here to that town. I am very sorry to inflict so much trouble upon you, but it is a part of my misery to be a burden to you as well as to myself. When once this incubus is safely disposed of, I shall be less troublesome to you.“No, my dear John, there is no relenting, no awakening of maternal love. For me that mustremain for ever a meaningless phrase. For me there can be nothing now or ever more, except a sense of aversion and horror—a shrinking from the very image of the child that must never call me mother, or know the link between us. All that can possibly be done to sever that link I shall do; and I entreat you, by the love of past years, to help me in so doing. My only chance of peace in the future is in total severance. Remember that I am prepared to make any sacrifice that can secure the happiness of this wretched being, that can make up to her—”

“No, my dear John, there is no relenting, no awakening of maternal love. For me that mustremain for ever a meaningless phrase. For me there can be nothing now or ever more, except a sense of aversion and horror—a shrinking from the very image of the child that must never call me mother, or know the link between us. All that can possibly be done to sever that link I shall do; and I entreat you, by the love of past years, to help me in so doing. My only chance of peace in the future is in total severance. Remember that I am prepared to make any sacrifice that can secure the happiness of this wretched being, that can make up to her—”

“That can make up toher!”

Mildred’s clutch tightened upon the letter. This was the first mention of the infant’s sex.

“—For the dishonour to which she is born. I will gladly devote half my fortune to her maintenance and her future establishment in life, if she should grow up and marry. Remember also that I have sworn to myself never to entertain any proposal of marriage, never to listen to words of love from any man upon earth. You need have no fear of future embarrassment on my account. I shall never give a man the right to interrogate my past life. I resignmyself to a solitary existence—but not to a life clouded with shame. When I go back to England and resume my place in society, I shall try to think of this last year of agony as if it were a bad dream. You alone know my secret, and you can help me if you will. My prayer is that from the hour I see the child transferred to the new nurse at Dijon, I shall never look upon its face again. The nurse can go back to her home as fast as the train will carry her, and I can go back to London with you.”

The next letter was written seven years later, and addressed from Kensington Gore:

“I suppose I ought to answer your long letter by saying that I am glad the child has good health, that I rejoice in her welfare, and so on. But I cannot be such a hypocrite. It hurts me to write about her; it hurts me to think of her. My heart hardens itself against her at every suggestion of her quickness, or her prettiness, or any other merit. To me she can be nothing except—disgrace. I burnt your letter the instant it was read. I felt as if some one was looking over my shoulder as I read it. I dared not go down to lunch for fear Mrs.Winstanley’s searching eyes should read my secret in my face. I pretended a headache, and stayed in my room till our eight-o’clock dinner, when I knew I should be safe in the dim religious light which my chaperon affects as the most flattering to wrinkles and pearl-powder.“But I am not ungrateful, my dear John. I am touched even by your kindly interest in that unfortunate waif. I have no doubt you have done wisely in placing her with the good old lady at Barnes, and that she is very happy running about the Common. I am glad I know where she is, so that I may never drive that way, if I can possibly help it. Your old lady must be rather a foolish woman, I should think, to change Fanny into Fay, on the strength of the child’s airy movements and elfin appearance; but as long as this person knows nothing of her charge’s history her silliness cannot matter.”

“But I am not ungrateful, my dear John. I am touched even by your kindly interest in that unfortunate waif. I have no doubt you have done wisely in placing her with the good old lady at Barnes, and that she is very happy running about the Common. I am glad I know where she is, so that I may never drive that way, if I can possibly help it. Your old lady must be rather a foolish woman, I should think, to change Fanny into Fay, on the strength of the child’s airy movements and elfin appearance; but as long as this person knows nothing of her charge’s history her silliness cannot matter.”

A letter of a later date was addressed from Lewes Crescent.

“I am horrified at what you have done. O, John, how could you be so reckless, so forgetful ofmy reiterated entreaties to keep that girl’s existence wide apart from mine or yours? And you have actually introduced her into your own house as a relation; and you actually allow her to be called by your name! Was ever such madness? You stultify all that has been done in the past. You open the door to questionings and conjectures of the most dreadful kind. No, I will not see her. You must be mad to suggest such a thing. My feeling about her to-day is exactly the same as my feeling on the day she was born—disgust, horror, dread. I will never—willingly—look upon her face.“Do you remember those words inBleak House? ‘Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers.’ So it is with that girl and me. Can love be possible where there is this mutual disgrace?“For God’s sake, get the girl out of your house as soon as you can! Send her to some good school abroad—France, Germany, where you like, and save me from the possibility of discovery. My secret has been kept—my friends look up to me. I have outlived the worst part of my misery, and have learntto take some interest in life. I could not survive the discovery of my wretched story.”

“Do you remember those words inBleak House? ‘Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers.’ So it is with that girl and me. Can love be possible where there is this mutual disgrace?

“For God’s sake, get the girl out of your house as soon as you can! Send her to some good school abroad—France, Germany, where you like, and save me from the possibility of discovery. My secret has been kept—my friends look up to me. I have outlived the worst part of my misery, and have learntto take some interest in life. I could not survive the discovery of my wretched story.”

A later letter was briefer and more business-like.

“I fully concur in the settlement you propose, and would as willingly make the sum 40,000l.as 30,000l.Remember that, so far as money can go, I am anxious to do theuttermost. I hope she will marry soon, and marry well, and that she may lead a happy and honourable life under a new name—a name that she can bear without a blush. I should be much relieved if she could continue to live abroad.”

This was the last letter in the bundle tied with red ribbon. In the same pigeon-hole Mildred found the draft of a deed of gift, transferring 30,000l.India Stock to Fanny Fausset, otherwise Vivien Faux, on her twenty-first birthday, and with the draft there were several letters from a firm of solicitors in Lincoln’s Inn Fields relating to the same deed of gift.

The last of the letters fell from Mildred’s lap as she sat with her hands clasped before her face, dazed by this sudden light which altered the aspect of her life.

“Fool, fool, fool!” she cried.

The thought of all she had suffered, and of the suffering she had inflicted on the man she loved, almost maddened her. She had condemned her father—her generous, noble-hearted father—upon evidence that had seemed to her incontrovertible. She had believed in a stain upon that honourable life—had believed him a sinner and a coward. And Miss Fausset knew all that she had forfeited by that fatal misapprehension, and yet kept her shameful secret, caring for her own reputation more than for two blighted lives.

She remembered how she had appealed to her aunt to solve the mystery of Fay’s parentage, and how deliberately Miss Fausset had declared her ignorance. She had advised her niece to go back to her husband, but that was all.

Mildred gathered the letters together, tied them with the faded ribbon, and then went to her father’s writing-table and wrote these lines, in a hand that trembled with indignation:

“I know all the enclosed letters can tell me. You have kept your secret at the hazard of breakingtwo hearts. I know not if the wrong you have done me can ever be set right; but this I know, that I shall never again enter your house, or look upon your face, if I can help it. I am going back to my husband, never again to leave him, if he will let me stay.Mildred Greswold.”

Mildred Greswold.”

She packed the letters securely in one of the large banker’s envelopes out of her father’s desk. She sealed the packet with her father’s crest, intending to register and post it with her own hands on her way to Romsey; and then, with a heart that beat with almost suffocating force, she consulted the time-table, and tried to match trains between Reading and Basingstoke.

There was a train from Chertsey to Reading at five. She might catch that and be home—home—home—how the word thrilled her! some time before midnight. She would have gone back if it had been to arrive in the dead of night.

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