"Did you think that I should have anything to say against your marriage, Milly?" said Lettice, mournfully.
"I--I thought you might. And Mr. Beadon asked me not to mention it."
"Well!--and so you trusted him. And then, poor girl, your dream soon came to an end?"
"Not very soon. He kept his word----"
"What?"
"He married me, on the day when I left you. Not in a church, but somewhere--in Fulham, I think. It looked like a private house, but he said it was a registrar"s. Oh, Miss Campion, are you ill?"
Lettice was holding her side. She had turned white, and her heart was throbbing painfully; but she soon overcame the feeling or at least concealed it.
"No. Go on--go on! He married you!"
"And we went on the Continent together. I was very happy for a time, so long as he seemed happy; but I could never shake off that uncomfortable fear in his presence. After a while we came back to London, and then I had to live alone, which of course I did not like. He had taken very nice rooms for me at Hampstead, where he used to come now and then; and he offered to bring some friends to visit me; but I did not want him to do that--I cared for n.o.body but him!"
"Poor Milly!" said Lettice, softly.
"I had been suspicious and uneasy for some time, especially when he told me I had better go to Birchmead and stay with my grandmother, as he was too busy to come and see me, and the rooms at Hampstead were expensive.
So I went to Birchmead and told them that Mr. Beadon was abroad. He was not--he was in London--and I went up to see him every now and then; but I wanted to put the best face on everything. It would have been too hard to tell my grandmother that I did not think he cared for me."
She stopped and wiped the tears away from her eyes.
"There was worse than that," she said. "I began to believe that I was not his lawful wife, or he would not behave to me as he did. But I daren"t ask, I was so afraid of him. And I felt as if I could not leave him, even if I was not his wife. That"s where the badness of me came out, you see, Miss Lettice. I would have stayed with him to the end of my days, wife or no wife, if he had wanted me. But he tired of me very soon."
"Did he tell you so, Milly?"
"He wrote to me to go back to the Hampstead rooms, miss. And I thought that everything was going to be right between us. I had something to tell him which I thought would please him; and I hoped--I hoped--even if things had not been quite right about the marriage--that he would put them straight before my baby came. For the child"s sake I thought maybe he wouldn"t give me up. I had been dreadfully afraid; but when he sent for me to London again, I thought that he loved me still, and that we were going to have a happy time together.
"So I went to Hampstead; but he was not there. He sent his clerk instead--the man you saw me walking with the other day. And he told me that Mr.----Beadon did not wish to see me again, that I had been deceived by the mock marriage, and that he sent me twenty pounds, and I might have more by writing to his clerk. Not to him! I was never to see him or speak to him again."
"And what did you do then, Milly?"
"It was very hard for me. I fainted, and when I came to myself Mr.
Johnson was gone, and the money was stuffed into my pocket. Perhaps it was mean of me to keep it, but I hadn"t the heart or the spirit to send it back. I did not know what I should do without it, for I hadn"t a penny of my own. I stayed for a little time at the Hampstead lodgings, but the landlady got an idea of the true state of things and abused me shamefully one day for having come into her house; so I was forced to go. I don"t know what I should have done if I hadn"t met Mr. Johnson in the street. He was really kind, though he doesn"t look as if he would be. He told me of nice cheap lodgings, and of some one who would look after me; and he offered me money, but I wouldn"t take it."
"How long did your money last?"
"It was all gone before baby came. I lived on the dresses and presents that Mr. Beadon had given me. I heard nothing from Birchmead--I did not know that my grandmother was dead, and I used to think sometimes that I would go to her; but I did not dare. I knew that it would break her heart to see me as I was."
"Poor girl!" said Lettice again, below her breath.
"You must despise me!" cried Milly, bursting into tears. "And you would despise me still more--if I told you--everything."
"No, Milly, it is not for me to despise you. I am very, very sorry for you. You have suffered a great deal, for what was not all your fault."
"Yes, I _have_ suffered, Miss Lettice--more than I can tell you. I had a terrible time when my baby was born. I had a fever too, and lost my hair; and when I recovered I had nothing left. I did not know what to do. I thought of throwing myself into the river; and I think I should have done it when I came to Birchmead and found that grandmother was dead, if it had not been for you. You found me in the garden that night, just as I had made up my mind. There"s a place across the meadows where one could easily get into a deep pool under the river-bank, and never come out again. That was where I meant to go."
"No wonder you have looked so ill and worn," said Lettice, compa.s.sionately. "What you must have endured before you brought yourself to that! Well, it is all over now, and you must live for the future. Put the past behind you; forget it--think of it only with sorrow for your mistakes, and a determination to use them so that your child shall be better guarded than you have been. You and your baby have your own lives to live--good and useful lives they may be yet. No one would blame you if they knew your story, and there is no reason why you should be afraid. I will always be your friend, Milly, if you will work and strive--it is the only way in which you can regain and keep your self-respect."
Milly bent her head and kissed Lettice"s hand with another outburst of tears. But they were tears of grat.i.tude, and Lettice did not try to check them now.
Whilst they were still sitting thus, side by side, the servant knocked at the door with a message for her mistress; and her voice broke strangely through the sympathetic silence that had been for some time maintained between mistress and maid.
"Mr. Campion wishes to see you, ma"am."
Lettice felt the face which still rested on her hand flush with sudden heat; but when Milly raised it it was as white as snow. The baby in its cradle stirred and began to wake.
"I will come at once, Mrs. Jermy," said Lettice.
"Milly, you had better finish your work here, and let me give baby to Mrs. Jermy for a few minutes. She will be quite good if I take her downstairs."
She did not look at Milly as she spoke; or, if she did, she paid no heed to the mute pain and deprecation in the mother"s eyes. Folding the baby in the white shawl that had covered it, she took it in her arms, and with slow, almost reluctant steps, went down to meet her brother.
Sydney had come upon what he felt to be a painful errand.
Although the session had begun, and the House of Commons was already hard at work on a vain attempt to thresh out the question of Parliamentary Procedure, he was not yet able to devote himself to the urgent affairs of the nation, or to seek an opening for that eloquent and fiery speech which he had elaborated in the intervals of his autumn rest. Before he could set his mind to these things there was an equally urgent question of domestic procedure which it was necessary for him to arrange--a question for which he had been more or less prepared ever since he heard of the flight of Lettice from Florence, but which had a.s.sumed the gravest possible importance within the last few hours.
A terrible and incredible thing had come to the knowledge of Sydney Campion. That morning he had looked in at his chambers in the Temple, and he had found there, amongst other letters, one written about three weeks before by Cora Walcott, which had made his blood run cold.
"SIR,"--the letter ran--"you were just and bold on that day when you vindicated my character in the Criminal Court, and procured a well-deserved punishment for the husband who had outraged me.
Therefore it is that I write to give you warning, and to tell you that the man Walcott, discharged from prison, has been secretly conveyed away by one whom you know, after I had been deceived in a most shameful manner with a story of his death in prison. I saw her on the day before his release--her and his child--waiting to appropriate him, and like an idiot I believed her lies. I know not where they hide together, but.... I seek until I find. If you know, take my advice, and separate them. I go prepared. You proved last time that my husband stabbed me. That was very clever on your part; but you will not be able to prove the like thing again, if I should meet my husband and your sister together.
"CORA WALCOTT."
This letter had exasperated Sydney beyond endurance. He did not know Lettice"s address; but, thinking it possible that Mrs. Graham might have it, he went the same afternoon to Edwardes Square. Clara, being at home, was able, though in some trepidation, to tell him what he wanted; and thus it was that he found himself at Bute Lodge.
Lettice came into the room where he had been waiting, intrepid, and yet boding something which could not be entirely pleasant for him, and might be very much the reverse. She did not want to quarrel with Sydney--she had made many efforts in the past to please him, without much effect, and had been pained by the increasing interval which separated them from each other. But she believed that to earn his good word would imply the forsaking of nearly all that she valued, and the bowing down to images which she could not respect; and therefore she was content that his good word should be a thing beyond her reach.
She carried the baby on her left arm, and held out her right to Sydney.
He barely touched her fingers.
"You are back again," she said. "I hope you had a pleasant time, and that your wife is well."
"She is pretty well, thank you. We should have gone on to Florence if you had remained there, as we expected. You have taken your fate in your hands, Lettice, and cut yourself adrift from those who care for you!"
"Not willingly, Sydney. You might believe that at every step I have done what seemed to be my duty."
"How can one believe that? I only wish I could. Read this letter!"
She looked at him first, and her eyes flashed at his expression of unbelief. She drew herself up as she took Cora"s letter in her hands, and read it through with a curl of contempt upon her lips. Then she dropped the paper, and, clasping Milly"s child to her breast, looked long and steadily at her brother.
"Why did you give me that to read?" she said quietly.
"There could be only one reason," he replied; "to ask you if it is true?"
"You _ask_ me? You expect an answer?"