"Do you really mean that the late Mrs. Villiers left Sarah a legacy, Doctor?" he said, in some excitement.
"I do; and infer from your united words that that rascal has pocketed it; I must see to it," and going to the telephone, ringing up Brookes & Davidson, ascertaining that they were both at their offices, said:
"h.e.l.lo! Have been interviewed _re_ Villiers" estate, am now sending the persons to you; they are quite reliable; shall see you to-morrow."
"All right, send them on."
"This is all I can do for you at present," he said; "and I advise you to make oath as to your not having received the legacy; it will save time.
"I am selfish enough to be glad you are going out to New York; something tells me you will trace Miss Pearl; and I can a.s.sure you both, you have my fullest sympathy in your dealings with Stone; I can scarcely restrain myself from taking the law into my own hands, going out, and charging them with their villainy."
"Thank G.o.d for your friendship, Doctor," said Silas Jones fervently, as he smoothed Sarah"s bonnet-strings, and gave her her satchel.
"Good-bye, sir, and heaven bless you for your kindnesses," said Sarah Kane, with feeling.
"O, pshaw; my only regret is that you have only found me out to say farewell; but you must both come back, and bring Miss Pearl, to see an old man."
On reaching the offices of the law-firm, Sarah Kane made oath as to the not having received either money or wearing apparel.
W. Davidson, Q. C., saying:
"My eyes are being opened every day by the revelations of my clients; but what you say confirms my suspicion, that the schemes of some _certain_ people are such cunningly devised fables, as to make it next to impossible for all the law courts in the kingdom to convict them."
On leaving Temple Bar, they dined comfortably at a restaurant, talking faster than they ate. Afterwards, by the words of a clergyman, they were at last made one, at which, with hearts full of thankfulness and quiet content, they took a Bayswater omnibus.
Again in the little back parlor, where Mary had a table groaning under its good things, with a bright fire to welcome them, to which they had scarcely done justice, and beginning to relate their adventures in the city, when Simon, the man from Broadlawns, entered, saying, hurriedly:
"I gave my word to the young gent up to the house that I"d fetch you folks up to see him when they, over there, were out; so, come along, please, if you be in a mind to give the poor gentleman his way."
"Yes, indeed, we will, Simon," said Sarah Kane, readily tying on her bonnet. "Come, Silas, dear."
He rose, somewhat reluctantly, for the neat little parlor is doubly home to him now, with the sweet, gentle face of Sarah looking at him with the loving eyes of a wife.
"But are you sure, Simon, that they are all out, and for the evening, for I cannot answer for myself if I come across them?"
"Sure as the Bank of England, Mr. Jones, they be at the parson"s. He"s a showing of them off to a big missionary from foreign parts as his best angels."
"The Rev. Mr. Parks is so good," said Sarah, "that I always regret that his eyes are closed to the color of his angels."
"The trouble be, Mistress Kane, that they blindfold more nor parson,"
said Simon, as they hurriedly made their exit.
"Mistress Kane no longer, Simon, for I am glad to tell you we were married in the city to-day."
"Lawk-a-day! you don"t tell me; but I am mighty glad to hear it. You will have a man of your own now, to take your name out of the gossips"
mouth."
On arriving at Broadlawns, they went at once to the gloomy east chamber, when Sarah could scarcely repress an exclamation of intense pity at the change for the worse in the appearance of the long-suffering inmate. He was wasted to a shadow, and his brown locks had been shaved during brain fever, his kindly blue eyes looked black in the transparent paleness of his face, as did his whiskers and moustache, but in which many grey hairs had come. Holding out a thin, white hand, he welcomed Sarah warmly, saying:
"Oh, it _is_ good to see your face again. I expect I look like a galvanized corpse, Sarah. What with the horror of my forced union with Medusa (a pet name I have for Mrs. Cole), and then brain fever, which, I don"t wonder, caught me, and which, having that woman about me, aggravated. You banished, and maligned, at which I stuffed the bedclothes into my ears, and now my old enemy, inflammatory rheumatism, I have had a pretty tough time of it."
"Yes, indeed, you have, poor fellow," said Sarah, restraining her tears, and scarcely able to look at the wreck before her; "but you are on the mend now, and we must trust in G.o.d to bring you around soon. It has been a heartbreak to me, Mr. Cole, that I was not allowed to nurse you."
"Only another piece of their cruelty, Sarah. But tell me about yourself.
Where did that old sinner incarcerate you? tell me everything," he said, with feeble eagerness, for sometimes the pain was intense, causing him to set his teeth, or catch his breath.
But Silas Jones, seeing how much she was affected, and wishing to give her time to recover, himself gave the sick man a vivid picture of her imprisonment and release.
"Jove! what a wretch--I mean Stone; for the man Lang was simply his tool. Gad! I shall exercise a treble amount of will-power to get well, and out of their clutches, and back to dear old Toronto. "Out of every evil comes some good," they say; though, in my case, not much; in Sarah"s, yes, for you have given me a tonic, Jones. From this moment I am determined to recover."
"That"s right; be brave, sir, and you"ll pull through right smart," said Silas Jones; for Sarah is swallowing a lump in her throat.
"Yes, bear up, Mr. Cole," she said, trying to smile, as she seated herself on the bedside, taking his poor, worn hands into her own, warm with vitality. "But Silas has not given you a bit of good news--that the happiest part of our lives is to come, for from to-day, we pa.s.s them together!"
"Yes," said Silas, coming beside her, laying his hands on her shoulders; "yes, I have nothing more to wish for, with Sarah beside me. I cannot remember the time, sir, that I did not want Sarah."
Two tears rolled down the sick man"s cheeks, as he thought of his own wretched fate; but, by a visible effort, controlling self, he said, simply:
"I am glad you are together, and happy. Yours is a blessed union. G.o.d help me to health and strength, that I can free myself of _her_ presence," he cried imploringly. "Sarah, I have a fancy--it may be a dying one, heaven knows--it is to see a likeness of Pearl Villiers, the girl I was, by right, to have married."
"Here she is, poor dear," she said with alacrity, unfastening a locket suspended to her chain.
"How strange! how like her! only older, and more careworn. Sarah, I have seen a face like this three or four times on the other side of the water; the face, too, strange to say, haunted me; a nice, good face, rather than pretty; but if the careworn, troubled look was gone it would have been pretty. Yes, the same features; small, pale, and regular."
"And with fair hair and slight figure?" cried Sarah, clasping her hands.
"Yes," but with the restlessness of the invalid he changed the subject, saying:
"You and your husband are going to America, you say. I am going, too; _when_ I get well. You might meet me there, if you can"t wait for me,"
he said, wearily; "and, yes, there is something else I must hasten to say before those people return. I have received no letters since my arrival, only a few newspapers; here they are. I love them because they come from dear Toronto," he said, in nervous haste, taking from beneath his pillow a copy of the _Mail_, two of _Grip_, with a _Globe_.
"Letters were here to meet you, sir?"
"Then the sneaks have read and kept them," he cried, angrily.
"Perhaps I should not have told you, sir; but I don"t like you to think your friends have forgotten you."
"You do me no harm, Sarah, by your eye-openers. Wrath is a good tonic; tell me if you know what postmark was on them."
"Here are some envelopes I picked up from the grate the morning they sent me away."
"Yes, they said their letters would be here to meet me. This is quite plain, from Will Smith; this I can scarcely decipher; but it"s--yes, it"s Mrs. Gower"s writing; and this from a namesake of yours, Mr. Jones.
Ah, it"s good to see even these sc.r.a.ps. I could preach sermons on the wickedness of my jailers," he said, weakly, "but now, at once, before they come back, take my address here, on----"
"How dare you enter my roof! it is more than flesh and blood can stand,"
said Mrs. Cole, entering stealthily, her face in a flame with rage--a virago, from the crown of her head to the sole of her foot, and arrayed, with her usual contempt for harmonious coloring, in pea-green satin, jet tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, with crimson bows.
"Calm yourself, Mrs. Cole; we are in the presence of a sick man," said Silas, with intense pity for the invalid, and endeavoring to curb his own tongue.