Milly hovered all day long between alternations of wild hope and wild despair. If she had been accustomed to self-a.n.a.lysis, she herself might have been surprised to see how widely her present moods differed from those which had dominated her when she lived at Maple Cottage. She was then a vain, self-seeking little damsel, affectionate and uncorrupted, with an empty head, indeed, but an innocent heart. Now both self-seeking and vanity were being scourged out of her by force of the love which she had learnt to feel. She was little changed in manner, and an observer might have said that she was as childishly pleased as ever with a new gaud or a pretty toy; but behind the self-sufficiency of her demeanor, and the frivolity of her tastes, there was something new--something more real and living than mere self-indulgence and conceit. The faculty of giving and spending herself for others had sprung into being with the first love she had known. For the man with whom she had gone away from Lettice"s house she was willing to lay down her life if he would but accept the gift. And when he seemed loath to accept it, Milly became conscious of a heart-sick shame and pain which had already often brought tears that were not unworthy to her pretty childish eyes. The strength of her own feelings frightened her sometimes: she did not know how to resist the surging tide of pa.s.sion and longing and regret that rose and fell within her breast, as uncontrollable by her weak will as the waves by the Danish king of history. Poor Milly"s soul had been born within her, as a woman"s soul is often born through love, and the acquisition cost her nothing but pain as yet, although it might ultimately lead her to a higher life.
She arrived at the lodgings in Hampstead which had formerly been hers, about five o"clock in the afternoon. The landlady received her cordially, saying that "the gentleman had bespoke the rooms," and Milly was taken at once into the sitting-room, which looked west, and was lighted by a flood of radiance from the setting sun. Milly sank down on a sofa, in hopeless fatigue.
"Did he say that he would be home to-night?" she asked of the landlady.
"No, Mrs. Beadon, he didn"t; but he said that he was very busy in the city and would write or send if he couldn"t come himself."
"How was he looking?"
"Oh, very well, but a bit worried, I thought," said Mrs. Capper. "Now let me take your things, ma"am, and then I"ll bring up the tea: you don"t look as if your stay in the country had done you much good after all."
"Oh, I"m very well," said Milly, unfastening her mantle and coloring with nervousness under the woman"s sharp eye. "I daresay Mr. Beadon will come to-morrow, if he doesn"t come to-night."
But n.o.body came, although she sat up watching and waiting for many hours after Mrs. Capper had betaken herself to her bed. What did this silence and absence mean? Her heart contracted with a curious dread. She loved, but she had never believed herself capable of retaining love.
About eleven o"clock next day, she was informed that a gentleman wanted to speak to her. "A young-looking, fair gentleman, like a clerk," said Mrs. Capper. "Shall I show him up? It"s from your good "usband, most likely, I should think."
Milly started from the chair by the window, where she had been sitting.
"Oh, show him up, at once, please."
With one hand on the table, and her delicate face flushed, she presented a picture of loveliness such as the man who entered did not often see.
He even paused for a moment on the threshold as if too much amazed to enter, and his manner was somewhat uneasy as he bowed to her, with his eyes fixed in a rather furtive manner on her face.
He was a man of thirty-five, although his smooth-shaven face and fair hair made him look younger than his years. It was a commonplace countenance, shrewd and intelligent enough, but not very attractive.
There was a certain honesty in his eyes, however, which redeemed the plainness of his insignificant and irregular features.
"Mrs. Beadon, I think?" he said. "My name"s Johnson. I come from Mr.--Mr. Beadon with a message."
"Yes?" said Milly, her hand upon her side. "What is it, please? Tell me quickly--is he coming to-day?"
The man looked at her oddly. There was something like pity in his eyes.
"Not to-day, madam," he replied.
Milly sank down on her chair again and sighed deeply. The color left her cheeks.
"I have a communication to make, madam," said the clerk, rather hesitatingly, "which I am afraid may be a little painful, though not, Mr. Beadon tells me, unexpected by you. I hope that you will be prepared----"
"Go on," said Milly, sharply. "What is it? Why have you come?"
"Mr. Beadon wishes you to understand, madam, that he is going abroad again very shortly. He advises you to inform the landlady of this fact, which will explain his absence. But he also commissions me to put into your hands a sum for your present expenses, and to inform you that he will be quite willing to a.s.sist you at any time if you make application to him through me--at the address which I am to give you. Any personal application to himself will be disregarded."
"But, do you mean," said Milly, her cheeks growing very white, "that he is not coming--to say good-bye--before he goes abroad?"
"He thinks it better to spare you and himself an interview that might be unpleasant," said Mr. Johnson. "You understand, I suppose--a--that Mr.
Beadon--my princ.i.p.al, that is--wishes to close his relations with you finally."
Milly started to her feet and drew herself to her full height. Her cheeks were blazing now, her eyes on fire. "But I am _his wife_!" she cried.
Johnson looked at her for a moment in silent admiration. He had not liked the errand on which he was sent, and he liked it now less than ever.
"Pardon me, madam," he said, in some embarra.s.sment; "but Mr. Beadon is under the impression that you understand--that you have understood all along--that you were not legally in that position----"
"You mean," she said, her whole form quivering in her excitement, "that what he told me was false?--that when he said that our declaration before witnesses that we were man and wife was a true marriage--you mean that that was a lie?"
Johnson looked at the walls and the ceiling--anywhere but at poor Milly"s agonized face.
"It was not a marriage, madam," he said, in a regretful tone.
"Then he--he--deceived me--purposely? Oh, he is wicked! he is base! And I thought myself--I thought myself----"
Her fingers clutched at the neck of her dress, as if to tear it open, and so relieve the swelling of her throat.
"Does he think that he can make it up to me with money? Oh, I"ll take nothing from him any more. Let him go if he will, and his money too--I shall die and be forgotten--I won"t live to bear the shame of it--the pain--the----"
She did not finish her sentence. Her slight form was swaying to and fro, like a reed shaken by the wind; her face had grown whiter and whiter as she went on: finally she flung up her arms and fell senseless to the floor. The end of all her hopes and fears--of all her joys and longing and desire, was worse to her than death.
Johnson lifted her to the sofa, with a sort of awkward tenderness, which perhaps he would not have liked to acknowledge to his master; and then, before summoning Mrs. Capper, he thrust into Milly"s pocket the envelope containing the banknotes and the address which he had brought with him.
He knew that his master was "doing the thing handsomely," as far as money was concerned, and he had no doubt but that the forsaken woman would see, when she had got over her first mad frenzy of despair, that she had better accept and use his gifts. So he stowed the envelope away in her pocket, so that it might not attract the curious eyes of prying servant or landlady.
Then he called to Mrs. Capper, and gave her a brief explanation of Milly"s swoon. "The lady"s a little overcome," he said. "Mr. Beadon has got to go abroad, and couldn"t find time to see her before he went."
"Hard-heated brute!" said the landlady, as she chafed Milly"s hands, and held a smelling-bottle to her nose.
"Oh, dear, no!" said Mr. Johnson, briskly. "Family ties must not stand in the way of business. I wish you good-day, and hope the lady will soon be better."
And he left the house rather hurriedly, for he had no desire to encounter the despairing appeal of Milly"s eyes when she recovered from her swoon.
"It is a little too bad to make me his messenger," he said to himself.
"He may do his dirty work himself another time. I thought she was quite a different sort of person. Poor thing! I wonder how he feels about her, or whether he feels anything at all."
He had an opportunity of putting his master"s equanimity to the test when he made his report of the interview--a report which was made that very afternoon, in spite of his representations that Mr. Beadon had already gone abroad.
"Well, you saw her?" he was asked.
"Yes, sir. I said what you desired, and gave her the money."
"Any fuss?"
"She fainted--that was all," said Johnson, grimly.
"But she kept the money?"
"She had no choice. I put it into her pocket while she was unconscious, and then summoned the landlady."
"Ah, yes, that was right. And she understands----"
"Everything that you wish her to understand," said the clerk, with a touch of disrespect in his manner, which his employer noticed, and silently resented.