"How could I ask a girl to come and take over five children?"
"No woman that was worth having would let little children be sacrificed for her sake," said Miss Lindsay, decidedly.
"Do you think anybody would marry me with five children?" demanded Mr.
Barrett.
"She might," said the girl, edging away from him a little. "It depends on the woman."
"Would-you, for instance?" said Mr. Barrett, desperately.
Miss Lindsay shrank still farther away. "I don"t know; it would depend upon circ.u.mstances," she murmured.
"I will write and send for them," said Mr. Barrett, significantly.
Miss Lindsay made no reply. They had arrived at her gate by this time, and, with a hurried handshake, she disappeared indoors.
Mr. Barrett, somewhat troubled in mind, went home to tea.
He resolved, after a little natural hesitation, to drown the children, and reproached himself bitterly for not having disposed of them at the same time as their mother. Now he would have to go through another period of mourning and the consequent delay in pressing his suit.
Moreover, he would have to allow a decent interval between his conversation with Miss Lindsay and their untimely end.
The news of the catastrophe arrived two or three days before the return of the girl from her summer holidays. She learnt it in the first half- hour from her landlady, and sat in a dazed condition listening to a description of the grief-stricken father and the sympathy extended to him by his fellow-citizens. It appeared that nothing had pa.s.sed his lips for two days.
"Shocking!" said Miss Lindsay, briefly. "Shocking!"
An instinctive feeling that the right and proper thing to do was to nurse his grief in solitude kept Mr. Barrett out of her way for nearly a week. When she did meet him she received a limp handshake and a greeting in a voice from which all hope seemed to have departed.
"I am very sorry," she said, with a sort of measured gentleness.
Mr. Barrett, in his hushed voice, thanked her.
"I am all alone now," he said, pathetically. "There is n.o.body now to care whether I live or die."
Miss Lindsay did not contradict him.
"How did it happen?" she inquired, after they had gone some distance in silence.
"They were out in a sailing-boat," said Mr. Barrett; "the boat capsized in a puff of wind, and they were all drowned."
"Who was in charge of them?" inquired the girl, after a decent interval.
"Boatman," replied the other.
"How did you hear?"
"I had a letter from one of my sisters-in-law, Charlotte," said Mr.
Barrett. "A most affecting letter. Poor Charlotte was like a second mother to them. She"ll never be the same woman again. Never!"
"I should like to see the letter," said Miss Lindsay, musingly.
Mr. Barrett suppressed a start. "I should like to show it to you," he said, "but I"m afraid I have destroyed it. It made me shudder every time I looked at it."
"It"s a pity," said the girl, dryly. "I should have liked to see it.
I"ve got my own idea about the matter. Are you sure she was very fond of them?"
"She lived only for them," said Mr. Barrett, in a rapt voice.
"Exactly. I don"t believe they are drowned at all," said Miss Lindsay, suddenly. "I believe you have had all this terrible anguish for nothing.
It"s too cruel."
Mr. Barrett stared at her in anxious amazement.
"I see it all now," continued the girl. "Their Aunt Charlotte was devoted to them. She always had the fear that some day you would return and claim them, and to prevent that she invented the story of their death."
"Charlotte is the most truthful woman that ever breathed," said the distressed Mr. Barrett.
Miss Lindsay shook her head. "You are like all other honourable, truthful people," she said, looking at him gravely. "You can"t imagine anybody else telling a falsehood. I don"t believe you could tell one if you tried."
Mr. Barrett gazed about him with the despairing look of a drowning mariner.
"I"m certain I"m right," continued the girl. "I can see Charlotte exulting in her wickedness. Why!"
"What"s the matter?" inquired Mr. Barrett, greatly worried.
"I"ve just thought of it," said Miss Lindsay. "She"s told you that your children are drowned, and she has probably told them you are dead. A woman like that would stick at nothing to gain her ends."
"You don"t know Charlotte," said Mr. Barrett, feebly.
"I think I do," was the reply. "However, we"ll make sure. I suppose you"ve got friends in Melbourne?"
"A few," said Mr. Barrett, guardedly.
"Come down to the post-office and cable to one of them."
Mr. Barrett hesitated. "I"ll write," he said, slowly. "It"s an awkward thing to cable; and there"s no hurry. I"ll write to Jack Adams, I think."
"It"s no good writing," said Miss Lindsay, firmly. "You ought to know that."
"Why not?" demanded the other.
"Because, you foolish man," said the girl, calmly, "before your letter got there, there would be one from Melbourne saying that he had been choked by a fish-bone, or died of measles, or something of that sort."
Mr. Barrett, hardly able to believe his ears, stopped short and looked at her. The girl"s eyes were moist with mirth and her lips trembling. He put out his hand and took her wrist in a strong grip.
"That"s all right," he said, with a great gasp of relief. "Phew! At one time I thought I had lost you."
"By heart-disease, or drowning?" inquired Miss Lindsay, softly.