"Amply satisfactory."
She sat down before the table and took the pen in her hand, hesitating a moment as to whether she ought to ask for further details. Her tears and her curiosity were alike aroused, and Mr. Copley divined the question, which she hardly knew how to put into words. He produced a sheet of notepaper, containing a few memoranda, and pa.s.sed it across the table.
"That was to refresh my memory if necessary; but happily it isn"t. Mr.
Campion may like to see it however. He will find it is all correct. I knew I was right in asking to see you, ma"am."
Nan did not look at the memoranda. She was satisfied that she had the details before her for her own or Sydney"s consideration if necessary.
She signed her cheque and took possession of the dishonored bill; and then Mr. Copley departed.
When he was gone, she caught up the sheet of paper and hastily glanced at it.
"1880--studs, pin, money advanced 50. 1881--ring, money advanced 100; bracelet, necklace, pendant, money advanced 150----" and so on. Further down the page, Nan"s eye was caught by the words: "Diamond and sapphire ring."
"Ah!" she said, catching her breath as if she were in pain, and laying the paper down on the table, "_that_ was mine!"
The ring was on her finger as she spoke. It had been her engagement ring. She looked at it for a minute or two, then slowly, took it off and put it into the drawer.
Next, with an absent look upon her face, she took up a small taper, and lighted it; and, holding Mr. Copley"s paper by one corner, she raised it to the flame and converted it into ashes. One line escaped. A fragment of the paper was scorched but not consumed, and as she took it up to make her work more thorough, the words and a date caught her attention once again.
"Bracelet, necklace, pendant, bought after we knew each other," she murmured with a curious smile. "Those were _not_ for me. I wonder----"
But she did not go on. It was the first time that a shadow from Sydney"s past had crossed her life; and she dared not investigate it too closely.
She put the bill and her cheque-book out of sight, and sat down to think over the present position of affairs.
Sydney came home just before lunch-time, and, hearing that she was in her own little sitting-room (she would not have it called a boudoir), went up to her. He looked vexed and anxious, as Nan was quick to notice, but he came up to her side and kissed her affectionately.
"Better, Nan?" She had not been very well when he left her: indeed, the delicacy of her health had lately been more marked, and had several times given him cause for uneasiness.
"Yes, thank you. But you don"t look well, Sydney."
She hoped that he would tell her what was wrong. To her disappointment, he smiled, and answered lightly.
"I"m all right, Nan. I have a good deal to do just now, and am rather tired--that is all."
"Tired--and anxious?" she said, looking at him with more keenness than he had thought her soft eyes capable of expressing.
"Anxious! no, I have not much to be anxious about, have I?"
He spoke with a laugh; but, to her fancy, there was something half-alarmed and half-defiant in the pose of his lifted head, the glance of his handsome bright eyes. Her heart sank a little: it seemed to her that it would have been n.o.bler in her husband to tell her the whole truth, and it had never occurred to her before to think of him as ign.o.ble in any way.
"I suppose you do not want to tell me for fear of troubling me," she said, with a tremor in her voice; "but I think I know what you are anxious about, Sydney."
He gave a little start as he turned towards her.
"Some man has been here whilst you were out, and he sent up this letter with a request that it should be opened. Look!" she said, giving him the bill, "you can tear it up now. I was sure you had gone out to see about it, but I thought it better that I should settle it at once. I hope"--with a little girlish nervousness--"you don"t mind?"
He had sat down on a chair when she showed him Mr. Copley"s letter, with the look of a man determined to bear a blow, but he sprang up again at the sight of his dishonored acceptance.
"And you have paid it, Nan?" he cried.
"Yes, I paid it. Oh, Sydney, it was a little thing to do! If only you had told me months ago!"
Her eyes brimmed over with tears at last. She had been smarting under a sense of terrible humiliation ever since Mr. Copley"s visit, but hitherto she had not wept. Now, when her husband took her in his arms and looked into her eyes, the pain at her heart was somewhat a.s.suaged, although the tears fell swiftly down her pale cheeks.
"Nan, I never dreamed that I should find your kindness so bitter to me,"
Sydney said.
He was profoundly moved by her gentleness and by her generosity alike.
But inasmuch as it requires more generosity of nature to accept a gift n.o.bly than to make it, he felt himself shamed in her eyes, and his wife was in her turn pained by the consciousness of his shame.
"Why should you be afraid to trust me?" she said. "All that concerns you concerns me as well; and I am only setting myself free from trouble and anxiety if I do anything for you. Don"t you understand? And as far as my money is concerned, you know very well that if it had not been for John and those tiresome lawyers, you should have had it all and spent it, if you chose, without the slightest reference to me. What grieves me, dearest, is that you should have been suffering without taking me into your confidence."
"I ought to have done so," said Sydney, rather reluctantly, "but I felt as if I could not tell you all these paltry, sordid details. You might have thought----"
Then he paused, and the color rose darkly in his face.
"I should have thought nothing but what was honorable to you," said Nan, throwing back her graceful head with a gesture of natural pride and indignation.
"And now you think the worse of me?"
"No, no!" she cried, stealing one arm round his neck, "I think nothing bad of you--nothing! Only you _will_ trust me, now, Sydney? You will not hide things from me again?"
"No, my darling, nothing that you ought to know," he said. There was a touch of new but restrained emotion in his voice. It struck him for almost the first time how much of his life he had hidden from her frank and innocent eyes.
Presently, when he had kissed her tears away, she begged him to tell her what he still actually owed, and, after some little demur, he consented.
The amount of the debt, which lay heavily on his conscience, was comparatively a trivial thing to her. But when he had told her all, she looked at him with eyes which, although very loving, were full of wonder and dismay.
"Poor Sydney!" she said caressingly. "My poor boy! As if you could give your mind properly to anything with this heavy burden on it! To-morrow we can get the money, and pay off all these people. Then you will be able to work without any disturbance."
"Thanks to you, Nan," said her husband, with bowed head. She could not understand why he did not look more relieved. She never suspected that his mind was burdened with another debt, that money could not pay.
She had not asked him for any explanation of the items in the paper that she had read. The momentary wonder that had flitted across her mind pa.s.sed as quickly as it came. The gifts that were not for her had been intended perhaps for his sister Lettice, perhaps for the wedding present of a friend. She did not like to ask. But a slightly uncomfortable sensation remained in her mind, and she never again wore the ring for which, as it now turned out, she herself had had to pay.
Sydney"s position was certainly a painful one just then. But he was at any rate relieved of the burden of his debts, and he hoped, with some compunction of heart, that no other secret of his life would ever come to his wife"s ears. It was about this time that he received the letter from Cora Walcott and had the interview with Lettice, of which mention has been made; and Nan fancied that it was anxiety about his sister that caused him to show signs of moodiness and depression. He had told her nothing more of Lettice"s doings than he was obliged to tell, but other friends were not so reticent, and Lady Pynsent had enlightened Nan"s mind very speedily with respect to the upshot of "the Walcott affair."
Nan made some reference to it shortly afterwards in conversation with her husband, and was struck by the look of pain which crossed his face as he replied,
"Don"t talk about it, Nan, my dear."
"He must be much fonder of his sister than I thought," Nan said to herself. She made one more effort to speak.
"Could I do nothing, Sydney? Suppose I went to her, and told her how grieved you were----"
"You, Nan! For heaven"s sake, don"t let me hear of your crossing the threshold of that house!" cried Sydney, with vehemence, which Nan very naturally misunderstood.
It was, on the whole, a relief to her to find that he did not want her to take any active steps in any direction. She was not very strong, and was glad to be left a good deal at peace. Sydney was out for a great part of the day, and Nan took life easily. Lady Pynsent came to sit with her sometimes, or drove in the Park with her, and other friends sought her out: she had tender hopes for the future which filled her mind with sweet content, and she would have been happy but for that slight jar between Sydney and herself. That consciousness of a want of trust which never ceased to give her pain. Sydney himself was the most attentive of husbands when he was at home: he brought her flowers and fruit, he read aloud to her, he hung over her as she lay on the sofa, and surrounded her with a hundred little marks of his affection--such as she would have thought delicious while her confidence in him was still unshaken. She still found pleasure in them; but her eyes were keener than they had been, and she knew that beneath all the manifestations of his real and strong attachment to her there ran a vein of apology and misgiving--a state of things inexpressibly unsatisfactory to a woman who knows how to love and how to trust.
Sydney, only half-conscious that something was wrong, had no idea how to mend matters, and was, therefore, in a fair way to make them worse.
Frankness would have appeared brutal to him, and he did not see how subtly poisonous was the effect of his habits of concealment upon his wife"s mind. Gifted with the instinct of discernment, which in sensitive women is almost like a sort of second-sight, she knew, without knowing how she knew, that he had trouble which he did not confide to her, secrets which his tongue would never tell. He could deceive her as to their existence so long as the period of illusion lasted; but as soon as her eyes were opened her sight became very keen indeed. And he, believing himself always successful in throwing dust in her eyes, fancied that her wistful look, her occasional unresponsiveness to his caresses, proceeded from physical causes only, and would with them also pa.s.s away.