She had striven against herself, and against him, till her last effort at resistance was exhausted. In reckless despair she let the truth escape her at last.
"When do I ever think of anything else! I am a wretch unworthy of all the kindness that has been shown to me. I don"t deserve your interest; I don"t even deserve your pity. Send me away--be hard on me--be brutal to me. Have some mercy on a miserable creature whose life is one long hopeless effort to forget you!" Her voice, her look, maddened him. He drew her to his bosom; he held her in his arms; she struggled vainly to get away from him. "Oh," she murmured, "how cruel you are! Remember, my dear one, remember how young I am, how weak I am. Oh, Herbert, I"m dying--dying--dying!" Her voice grew fainter and fainter; her head sank on his breast. He lifted her face to him with whispered words of love.
He kissed her again and again.
The curtains over the library entrance moved noiselessly when they were parted. The footsteps of Catherine Linley were inaudible as she pa.s.sed through, and entered the room.
She stood still for a moment in silent horror.
Not a sound warned them when she advanced. After hesitating for a moment, she raised her hand toward her husband, as if to tell him of her presence by a touch; drew it back, suddenly recoiling from her own first intention; and touched Sydney instead.
Then, and then only, they knew what had happened.
Face to face, those three persons--with every tie that had once united them snapped asunder in an instant--looked at each other. The man owed a duty to the lost creature whose weakness had appealed to his mercy in vain. The man broke the silence.
"Catherine--"
With immeasurable contempt looking brightly out of her steady eyes, his wife stopped him.
"Not a word!"
He refused to be silent. "It is I," he said; "I only who am to blame."
"Spare yourself the trouble of making excuses," she answered; "they are needless. Herbert Linley, the woman who was once your wife despises you."
Her eyes turned from him and rested on Sydney Westerfield.
"I have a last word to say to _you_. Look at me, if you can."
Sydney lifted her head. She looked vacantly at the outraged woman before her, as if she saw a woman in a dream.
With the same terrible self-possession which she had preserved from the first--standing between her husband and her governess--Mrs. Linley spoke.
"Miss Westerfield, you have saved my child"s life." She paused--her eyes still resting on the girl"s face. Deadly pale, she pointed to her husband, and said to Sydney: "Take him!"
She pa.s.sed out of the room--and left them together.
THIRD BOOK.
Chapter XXII. Retrospect.
The autumn holiday-time had come to an end; and the tourists had left Scotland to the Scots.
In the dull season, a solitary traveler from the North arrived at the nearest post-town to Mount Morven. A sketchbook and a color-box formed part of his luggage, and declared him to be an artist. Falling into talk over his dinner with the waiter at the hotel, he made inquiries about a picturesque house in the neighborhood, which showed that Mount Morven was well known to him by reputation. When he proposed paying a visit to the old border fortress the next day, the waiter said: "You can"t see the house." When the traveler asked Why, this man of few words merely added: "Shut up."
The landlord made his appearance with a bottle of wine and proved to be a more communicative person in his relations with strangers. Presented in an abridged form, and in the English language, these (as he related them) were the circ.u.mstances under which Mount Morven had been closed to the public.
A complete dispersion of the family had taken place not long since. For miles round everybody was sorry for it. Rich and poor alike felt the same sympathy with the good lady of the house. She had been most shamefully treated by her husband, and by a good-for-nothing girl employed as governess. To put it plainly, the two had run away together; one report said they had gone abroad, and another declared that they were living in London. Mr. Linley"s conduct was perfectly incomprehensible. He had always borne the highest character--a good landlord, a kind father, a devoted husband. And yet, after more than eight years of exemplary married life, he had disgraced himself. The minister of the parish, preaching on the subject, had attributed this extraordinary outbreak of vice on the part of an otherwise virtuous man, to a possession of the devil. a.s.suming "the devil," in this case, to be only a discreet and clerical way of alluding from the pulpit to a woman, the landlord was inclined to agree with the minister. After what had happened, it was, of course, impossible that Mrs. Linley could remain in her husband"s house. She and her little girl, and her mother, were supposed to be living in retirement. They kept the place of their retreat a secret from everybody but Mrs. Linley"s legal adviser, who was instructed to forward letters. But one other member of the family remained to be accounted for. This was Mr. Linley"s younger brother, known at present to be traveling on the Continent. Two trustworthy old servants had been left in charge at Mount Morven--and there was the whole story; and that was why the house was shut up.
Chapter XXIII. Separation.
In a cottage on the banks of one of the c.u.mberland Lakes, two ladies were seated at the breakfast-table. The windows of the room opened on a garden which extended to the water"s edge, and on a boat-house and wooden pier beyond. On the pier a little girl was fishing, under the care of her maid. After a prevalence of rainy weather, the sun was warm this morning for the time of year; and the broad sheet of water alternately darkened and brightened as the moving ma.s.ses of cloud now gathered and now parted over the blue beauty of the sky.
The ladies had finished their breakfast; the elder of the two--that is to say, Mrs. Presty--took up her knitting and eyed her silent daughter with an expression of impatient surprise.
"Another bad night, Catherine?"
The personal attractions that distinguished Mrs. Linley were not derived from the short-lived beauty which depends on youth and health. Pale as she was, her face preserved its fine outline; her features had not lost their grace and symmetry of form. Presenting the appearance of a woman who had suffered acutely, she would have been more than ever (in the eyes of some men) a woman to be admired and loved.
"I seldom sleep well now," she answered, patiently.
"You don"t give yourself a chance," Mrs. Presty remonstrated. "Here"s a fine morning--come out for a sail on the lake. To-morrow there"s a concert in the town--let"s take tickets. There"s a want of what I call elastic power in your mind, Catherine--the very quality for which your father was so remarkable; the very quality which Mr. Presty used to say made him envy Mr. Norman. Look at your dress! Where"s the common-sense, at your age, of wearing nothing but black? n.o.body"s dead who belongs to us, and yet you do your best to look as if you were in mourning."
"I have no heart, mamma, to wear colors."
Mrs. Presty considered this reply to be unworthy of notice. She went on with her knitting, and only laid it down when the servant brought in the letters which had arrived by the morning"s post. They were but two in number--and both were for Mrs. Linley. In the absence of any correspondence of her own, Mrs. Presty took possession of her daughter"s letters.
"One addressed in the lawyer"s handwriting," she announced; "and one from Randal. Which shall I open for you first?"
"Randal"s letter, if you please."
Mrs. Presty handed it across the table. "Any news is a relief from the dullness of this place," she said. "If there are no secrets, Catherine, read it out."
There were no secrets on the first page.
Randal announced his arrival in London from the Continent, and his intention of staying there for a while. He had met with a friend (formerly an officer holding high rank in the Navy) whom he was glad to see again--a rich man who used his wealth admirably in the interest of his poor and helpless fellow-creatures. A "Home," established on a new plan, was just now engaging all his attention: he was devoting himself so unremittingly to the founding of this inst.i.tution that his doctor predicted injury to his health at no distant date. If it was possible to persuade him to take a holiday, Randal might return to the Continent as the traveling-companion of his friend.
"This must be the man whom he first met at the club," Mrs. Presty remarked. "Well, Catherine, I suppose there is some more of it. What"s the matter? Bad news?"
"Something that I wish Randal had not written. Read it yourself--and don"t talk of it afterward."
Mrs. Presty read:
"I know nothing whatever of my unfortunate brother. If you think this is a too-indulgent way of alluding to a man who has so shamefully wronged you, let my conviction that he is already beginning to suffer the penalty of his crime plead my excuse. Herbert"s nature is, in some respects, better known to me than it is to you. I am persuaded that your hold on his respect and his devotion is shaken--not lost. He has been misled by one of those pa.s.sing fancies, disastrous and even criminal in their results, to which men are liable when they are led by no better influence than the influence of their senses. It is not, and never will be, in the nature of women to understand this. I fear I may offend you in what I am now writing; but I must speak what I believe to be the truth, at any sacrifice. Bitter repentance (if he is not already feeling it) is in store for Herbert, when he finds himself tied to a person who cannot bear comparison with you. I say this, pitying the poor girl most sincerely, when I think of her youth and her wretched past life. How it will end I cannot presume to say. I can only acknowledge that I do not look to the future with the absolute despair which you naturally felt when I last saw you."
Mrs. Presty laid the letter down, privately resolving to write to Randal, and tell him to keep his convictions for the future to himself.
A glance at her daughter"s face warned her, if she said anything, to choose a new subject.
The second letter still remained unnoticed. "Shall we see what the lawyer says?" she suggested--and opened the envelope. The lawyer had nothing to say. He simply inclosed a letter received at his office.