The Evil Genius by Wilkie Collins (page 7)

“God forgive me, I have been wicked enough to accept him!”

Hearing this, some mothers might have made apologies; and other mothers might have asked what that penitential reply could possibly mean. Mrs. Presty was no matron of the ordinary type. She welcomed the good news, without taking the smallest notice of the expression of self-reproach which had accompanied it.

“My dear child, accept the congratulations of your fond old mother. I have never been one of the kissing sort (I mean of course where women are concerned); but this is an occasion which justifies something quite out of the common way. Come and kiss me.”

Catherine took no notice of that outburst of maternal love.

“I have forgotten everything that I
ought to have remembered,” she said. “In my vanity, in my weakness, in my selfish enjoyment of the passing moment, I have been too supremely happy even to think of the trials of my past life, and of the false position in which they have placed me toward a man, whom I ought to be ashamed to deceive. I have only been recalled to a sense of duty, I might almost say to a sense of decency, by my poor little child. If Kitty had not reminded me of her father–“

Mrs. Presty dropped into a chair: she was really frightened. Her fat cheeks trembled like a jelly on a dish that is suddenly moved.

“Has that man been here?” she asked.

“What man?”

“The man who may break off your marriage if he meets with the Captain. Has Herbert Linley been here?”

“Certainly not. The one person associated with my troubles whom I have seen to-day is Sydney Westerfield.”

Mrs. Presty bounced out of her chair. “You–have seen–Sydney Westerfield?” she repeated with emphatic pauses which expressed amazement tempered by unbelief.

“Yes; I have seen her.”

“Where?”

“In the garden.”

“And spoken to her?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Presty raised her eyes to the ceiling. Whether she expected our old friend “the recording angel” to take down the questions and answers that had just passed, or whether she was only waiting to see the hotel that held her daughter collapse under a sense of moral responsibility, it is not possible to decide. After an awful pause, the old lady remembered that she had something more to say–and said it.

“I make no remark, Catherine; I don’t even want to know what you and Miss Westerfield said to each other. At the same time, as a matter of convenience to myself, I wish to ascertain whether I must leave this hotel or not. The same house doesn’t hold that woman and ME. Has she gone?”

“She has gone.”

Mrs. Presty looked round the room. “And taken Kitty with her?” she asked.

“Don’t speak of Kitty!” Catherine cried in the greatest distress. “I have had to keep the poor innocent affectionate child apart from Miss Westerfield by force. My heart aches when I think of it.”

“I’m not surprised, Catherine. My granddaughter has been brought up on the modern system. Children are all little angels–no punishments–only gentle remonstrance–‘Don’t be naughty, dear, because you will make poor mamma unhappy.’ And then, mamma grieves over it and wonders over it, when she finds her little angel disobedient. What a fatal system of education! All my success in life; every quality that endeared me to your father and Mr. Presty; every social charm that has made me the idol of society, I attribute entirely to judicious correction in early life, applied freely with the open hand. We will change the subject. Where is dear Bennydeck? I want to congratulate him on his approaching marriage.” She looked hard at her daughter, and mentally added: “He’ll live to regret it!”

Catherine knew nothing of the Captain’s movements. “Like you,” she told her mother, “I have something to say to him, and I don’t know where he is.”

Mrs. Presty still kept her eyes fixed on her daughter. Nobody, observing Catherine’s face, and judging also by the tone of her voice, would have supposed that she was alluding to the man whose irresistible attractions had won her. She looked ill at ease, and she spoke sadly.

“You don’t seem to be in good spirits, my dear, Mrs. Presty gently suggested. “No lovers’ quarrel already, I hope?”

“Nothing of the kind.”

“Can I be of any use to you?”‘

“You might be of the greatest use. But I know only too well, you would refuse.”

Thus far, Mrs. Presty had been animated by curiosity. She began now to feel vaguely alarmed. “After all that I have done for you,” she answered, “I don’t think you ought to say that. Why should I refuse?”

Catherine hesitated.

Her mother persisted in pressing her. “Has it anything to do with Captain Bennydeck?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

Catherine roused her courage.

“You know what it is as well as I do,” she said. “Captain Bennydeck believes that I am free to marry him because I am a widow. You might help me to tell him the truth.”

“What!!!”

That exclamation of horror and astonishment was loud enough to have been heard in the garden. If Mrs. Presty’s hair had been all her own, it must have been hair that stood on end.

Catherine quietly rose. “We won’t discuss it,” she said, with resignation. “I knew you would refuse me.” She approached the door. Her mother got up and resolutely stood in the way. “Before you commit an act of downright madness,” Mrs. Presty said, “I mean to try if I can stop you. Go back to your chair.”

Catherine refused.

“I know how it will end,” she answered; “and the sooner it ends the better. You will find that I am quite as determined as you are. A man who loves me as _he_ loves me, is a man whom I refuse to deceive.”

“Let’s have it out plainly,” Mrs. Presty insisted. “He believes your first marriage has been dissolved by death. Do you mean to tell him that it has been dissolved by Divorce?”

“I do.”

“What right has he to know it?”

“A right that is not to be denied. A wife must have no secrets from her husband.”

Mrs. Presty hit back smartly.

“You’re not his wife yet. Wait till you are married.”

“Never! Who but a wretch would marry an honest man under false pretenses?”

“I deny the false pretenses! You talk as if you were an impostor. Are you, or are you not, the accomplished lady who has charmed him? Are you, or are you not, the beautiful woman whom he loves? There isn’t a stain on your reputation. In every respect you are the wife he wants and the wife who is worthy of him. And you are cruel enough to disturb the poor man about a matter that doesn’t concern him! you are fool enough to raise doubts of you in his mind, and give him a reproach to cast in your teeth the first time you do anything that happens to offend him! Any woman–I don’t care who she may be–might envy the home that’s waiting for you and your child, if you’re wise enough to hold your tongue. Upon my word, Catherine, I am ashamed of you. Have you no principles?”

She really meant it! The purely selfish considerations which she urged on her daughter were so many undeniable virtues in Mrs. Presty’s estimation. She took the highest moral ground, and stood up and crowed on it, with a pride in her own principles which the Primate of all England might have envied.

But Catherine’s rare resolution held as firm as ever. She got a little nearer to the door. “Good-night, mamma,” was the only reply she made.

“Is that all you have to say to me?”

“I am tired, and I must rest. Please let me go.”

Mrs. Presty threw open the door with a bang.

“You refuse to take my advice?” she said. “Oh, very well, have your own way! You are sure to prosper in the end. These are the days of exhibitions and gold medals. If there is ever an exhibition of idiots at large, I know who might win the prize.”

Catherine was accustomed to preserve her respect for her mother under difficulties; but this was far more than her sense of filial duty could successfully endure.

“I only wish I had never taken your advice,” she answered. “Many a miserable moment would have been spared me, if I had always done what I am doing now. You have been the evil genius of my life since Miss Westerfield first came into our house.”

She passed through the open doorway–stopped–and came back again. “I didn’t mean to offend you, mamma–but you do say such irritating things. Good-night.”

Not a word of reply acknowledged that kindly-meant apology. Mrs. Presty–vivacious Mrs. Presty of the indomitable spirit and the ready tongue–was petrified. She, the guardian angel of the family, whose experience, devotion, and sound sense had steered Catherine through difficulties and dangers which must have otherwise ended in utter domestic shipwreck–she, the model mother–had been stigmatized as the evil genius of her daughter’s life by no less a person than that daughter herself! What was to be said? What was to be done? What terrible and unexampled course of action should be taken after such an insult as this? Mrs. Presty stood helpless in the middle of the room, and asked herself these questions, and waited and wondered and found no answer.

An interval passed. There was a knock at the door. A waiter appeared. He said: “A gentleman to see Mrs. Norman.”

The gentleman entered the room and revealed himself.

Herbert Linley!

Chapter XLVIII.

Be Careful!

The divorced husband looked at his mother-in-law without making the slightest sacrifice to the claims of politeness. He neither offered his hand nor made his bow. His frowning eyebrows, his flushed face, betrayed the anger that was consuming him.

“I want to see Catherine,” he said.

This deliberate rudeness proved to be the very stimulant that was required to restore Mrs. Presty to herself. The smile that always meant mischief made its threatening appearance on the old lady’s face.

“What sort of company have you been keeping since I last saw you?” she began.

“What have you got to do with the company I keep?”

“Nothing whatever, I am happy to say. I was merely wondering whether you have been traveling lately in the south part of Africa, and have lived exclusively in the society of Hottentots. The only other explanation of your behavior is that I have been so unfortunate as to offend you. But it seems improbable–I am not your wife.”

“Thank God for that!”

“Thank God, as you say. But I should really be glad (as a mere matter of curiosity) to know what your extraordinary conduct means. You present yourself in this room uninvited, you find a lady here, and you behave as if you had come into a shop and wanted to ask the price of something. Let me give you a lesson in good manners. Observe: I receive you with a bow, and I say: How do you do, Mr. Linley? Do you understand me?”

“I don’t want to understand you–I want to see Catherine.”

“Who is Catherine?”

“You know as well as I do–your daughter.”

“My daughter, sir, is a stranger to you. We will speak of her, if you please, by the name–the illustrious name–which she inherited at her birth. You wish to see Mrs. Norman?”

“Call her what you like. I have a word to say to her, and I mean to say it.”

“No, Mr. Linley, you won’t say it.”

“We’ll see about that! Where is she?”

“My daughter is not well.”

“Well or ill, I shan’t keep her long.”

“My daughter has retired to her room.”

“Where is her room?”

Mrs. Presty moved to the fireplace, and laid her hand on the bell.

“Are you aware that this house is a hotel ?” she asked.

“It doesn’t matter to me what it is.”

“Oh yes, it does. A hotel keeps waiters. A hotel, when it is as large as this, has a policeman in attendance. Must I ring?”

The choice between giving way to Mrs. Presty, or being disgracefully dismissed, was placed plainly before him. Herbert’s life had been the life of a gentleman; he knew that he had forgotten himself; it was impossible that he could hesitate.

“I won’t trouble you to ring,” he said; “and I will beg your pardon for having allowed my temper to get the better of me. At the same time it ought to be remembered, I think, in my favor, that I have had some provocation.”

“I don’t agree with you,” Mrs. Presty answered. She was deaf to any appeal for mercy from Herbert Linley. “As to provocation,” she added, returning to her chair without asking him to be seated, “when you apply that word to yourself, you insult my daughter and me. _You_ provoked? Oh, heavens!”

“You wouldn’t say that,” he urged, speaking with marked restraint of tone and manner, “if you knew what I have had to endure–“

Mrs. Presty suddenly looked toward the door. “Wait a minute,” she said; “I think I hear somebody coming in.”

In the silence that followed, footsteps were audible outside–not approaching the door, however, but retiring from it. Mrs. Presty had apparently been mistaken. “Yes?” she said resignedly, permitting Herbert to proceed.

He really had something to say for himself, and he said it with sufficient moderation. That he had been guilty of serious offenses he made no attempt to deny; but he pleaded that he had not escaped without justly suffering for what he had done. He had been entirely in the wrong when he threatened to take the child away from her mother by force of law; but had he not been punished when his wife obtained her Divorce, and separated him from his little daughter as well as from herself? (No: Mrs. Presty failed to see it; if anybody had suffered by the Divorce, the victim was her injured daughter.) Still patient, Herbert did not deny the injury; he only submitted once more that he had suffered his punishment. Whether his life with Sydney Westerfield had or had not been a happy one, he must decline to say; he would only declare that it had come to an end. She had left him. Yes! she had left him forever. He had no wish to persuade her to return to their guilty life; they were both penitent, they were both ashamed of it. But she had gone away without the provision which he was bound in honor to offer to her.

“She is friendless; she may be in a state of poverty that I tremble to think of,” Herbert declared. “Is there nothing to plead for me in such anxiety as I am suffering now?” Mrs. Presty stopped him there; she had heard enough of Sydney already.

“I see nothing to be gained,” she said, “by dwelling on the past; and I should be glad to know why you have come to this place to-night.”

“I have come to see Kitty.”

“Quite out of the question.”

“Don’t tell me that, Mrs. Presty! I’m one of the wretchedest men living, and I ask for the consolation of seeing my child. Kitty hasn’t forgotten me yet, I know. Her mother can’t be so cruel as to refuse. She shall fix her own time, and send me away when she likes; I’ll submit to anything. Will you ask Catherine to let me see Kitty?”

“I can’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“For private reasons.”

“What reasons?”

“For reasons into which you have no right to inquire.”

He got up from his chair. His face presented the same expression which Mrs. Presty had seen on it when he first entered the room.

“When I came in here,” he said, “I wished to be certain of one thing. Your prevarication has told me what I wanted to know. The newspapers had Catherine’s own authority for it, Mrs. Presty, when they called her widow. I know now why my brother, who never deceived me before, has deceived me about this. I understand the part that your daughter has been playing–and I am as certain as if I had heard it, of the devilish lie that one of you–perhaps both of you–must have told my poor child. No, no; I had better not see Catherine. Many a man has killed his wife, and has not had such good reason for doing it as I have. You are quite right to keep me away from her.”

He stopped–and looked suddenly toward the door. “I hear her,” he cried, “She’s coming in!”

The footsteps outside were audible once more. This time, they were approaching; they were close to the door. Herbert drew back from it. Looking round to see that he was out of the way, Mrs. Presty rushed forward–tore open the door in terror of what might happen–and admitted Captain Bennydeck.

Chapter XLIX.

Keep the Secret.

The Captain’s attention was first attracted by the visitor whom he found in the room. He bowed to the stranger; but the first impression produced on him did not appear to have been of the favorable kind, when he turned next to Mrs. Presty.

Observing that she was agitated, he made the customary apologies, expressing his regret if he had been so unfortunate as to commit an intrusion. Trusting in the good sense and good breeding which distinguished him on other occasions, Mrs. Presty anticipated that he would see the propriety of leaving her alone again with the person whom he had found in her company. To her dismay he remained in the room; and, worse still, he noticed her daughter’s absence, and asked if there was any serious cause for it.

For the moment, Mrs. Presty was unable to reply. Her presence of mind–or, to put it more correctly, her ready audacity–deserted her, when she saw Catherine’s husband that had been, and Catherine’s husband that was to be, meeting as strangers, and but too likely to discover each other.

In all her experience she had never been placed in such a position of embarrassment as the position in which she found herself now. The sense of honor which had pr ompted Catherine’s resolution to make Bennydeck acquainted with the catastrophe of married life, might plead her excuse in the estimation of a man devotedly attached to her. But if the Captain was first informed that he had been deceived by a person who was a perfect stranger to him, what hope could be entertained of his still holding himself bound by his marriage engagement? It was even possible that distrust had been already excited in his mind. He must certainly have heard a man’s voice raised in anger when he approached the door–and he was now observing that man with an air of curiosity which was already assuming the appearance of distrust. That Herbert, on his side, resented the Captain’s critical examination of him was plainly visible in his face. After a glance at Bennydeck, he asked Mrs. Presty “who that gentleman was.”

“I may be mistaken,” he added; “but I thought your friend looked at me just now as if he knew me.”

“I have met you, sir, before this.” The Captain made the reply with a courteous composure of tone and manner which apparently reminded Herbert of the claims of politeness.

“May I ask where I had the honor of seeing you?” he inquired.

“We passed each other in the hall of the hotel at Sandyseal. You had a young woman with you.”

“Your memory is a better one than mine, sir. I fail to remember the circumstance to which you refer.”

Bennydeck let the matter rest there. Struck by the remarkable appearance of embarrassment in Mrs. Presty’s manner–and feeling (in spite of Herbert’s politeness of language) increased distrust of the man whom he had found visiting her–he thought it might not be amiss to hint that she could rely on him in case of necessity. “I am afraid I have interrupted a confidential interview,” he began; “and I ought perhaps to explain–“

Mrs. Presty listened absently; preoccupied by the fear that Herbert would provoke a dangerous disclosure, and by the difficulty of discovering a means of preventing it. She interrupted the Captain.

“Excuse me for one moment; I have a word to say to this gentleman.” Bennydeck immediately drew back, and Mrs. Presty lowered her voice. “If you wish to see Kitty,” she resumed, attacking Herbert on his weak side, “it depends entirely on your discretion.”

“What do you mean by discretion?”

“Be careful not to speak of our family troubles–and I promise you shall see Kitty. That is what I mean.”

Herbert declined to say whether he would be careful or not. He was determined to find out, first, with what purpose Bennydeck had entered the room. “The gentleman was about to explain himself to you,” he said to Mrs. Presty. “Why don’t you give him the opportunity?”?

She had no choice but to submit–in appearance at least. Never had she hated Herbert as she hated him at that moment. The Captain went on with his explanation. He had his reasons (he said) for hesitating, in the first instance, to present himself uninvited, and he accordingly retired. On second thoughts, however, he had returned, in the hope–

“In the hope,” Herbert interposed, “of seeing Mrs. Presty’s daughter?”

“That was one of my motives,” Bennydeck answered.

“Is it indiscreet to inquire what the other motive was?”

“Not at all. I heard a stranger’s voice, speaking in a tone which, to say the least of it, is not customary in a lady’s room and I thought–“

Herbert interrupted him again. “And you thought your interference might be welcome to the lady! Am I right?”

“Quite right.”

“Am I making another lucky guess if I suppose myself to be speaking to Captain Bennydeck?”

“I shall be glad to hear, sir, how you have arrived at the knowledge of my name.”

“Shall we say, Captain, that I have arrived at it by instinct?”

His face, as he made that reply, alarmed Mrs. Presty. She cast a look at him, partly of entreaty, partly of warning. No effect was produced by the look. He continued, in a tone of ironical compliment: “You must pay the penalty of being a public character. Your marriage is announced in the newspapers.”

“I seldom read the newspapers.”

“Ah, indeed? Perhaps the report is not true? As you don’t read the newspapers, allow me to repeat it. You are engaged to marry the ‘beautiful widow, Mrs. Norman.’ I think I quote those last words correctly?”

Mrs. Presty suddenly got up. With an inscrutable face that told no tales, she advanced to the door. Herbert’s insane jealousy of the man who was about to become Catherine’s husband had led him into a serious error; he had driven Catherine’s mother to desperation. In that state of mind she recovered her lost audacity, as a matter of course. Opening the door, she turned round to the two men, with a magnificent impudence of manner which in her happiest moments she had never surpassed.

“I am sorry to interrupt this interesting conversation,” she said; “but I have stupidly forgotten one of my domestic duties. You will allow me to return, and listen with renewed pleasure, when my household business is off my mind. I shall hope to find you both more polite to each other than ever when I come back.” She was in such a frenzy of suppressed rage that she actually kissed her hand to them as she left the room!

Bennydeck looked after her, convinced that some sinister purpose was concealed under Mrs. Presty’s false excuses, and wholly unable to imagine what that purpose might be. Herbert still persisted in trying to force a quarrel on the Captain.

“As I remarked just now,” he proceeded, “newspaper reports are not always to be trusted. Do you seriously mean, my dear sir, to marry Mrs. Norman?”

“I look forward to that honor and that happiness. But I am at a loss to know how it interests you.”

“In that case allow me to enlighten you. My name is Herbert Linley.”

He had held his name in reserve, feeling certain of the effect which he would produce when he pronounced it. The result took him completely by surprise. Not the slightest appearance of agitation showed itself in Bennydeck’s manner. On the contrary, he looked as if there was something that interested him in the discovery of the name.

“You are probably related to a friend of mine?” he said, quietly.

“Who is your friend?”

“Mr. Randal Linley.”

Herbert was entirely unprepared for this discovery. Once more, the Captain had got the best of it.

“Are you and Randal Linley intimate friends?” he inquired, as soon as he had recovered himself.

“Most intimate.”

“It’s strange that he should never have mentioned me, on any occasion when you and he were together.”

“It does indeed seem strange.”

Herbert paused. His brother’s keen sense of the disgrace that he had inflicted on the family recurred to his memory. He began to understand Randal’s otherwise unaccountable silence.

“Are you nearly related to Mr. Randal Linley?” the Captain asked.

“I am his elder brother.”

Ignorant on his part of the family disgrace, Bennydeck heard that reply with amazement. From his point of view, it was impossible to account for Randal’s silence.

“Will you think me very inquisitive,” Herbert resumed, “if I ask whether my brother approves of your marriage?”

There was a change in his tone, as he put that question which warned Bennydeck to be on his guard. “I have not yet consulted my friend’s opinion,” he answered, shortly.

Herbert threw off the mask. “In the meantime, you shall have my opinion,” he said. “Your marriage is a crime–and I mean to prevent it.”

The Captain left his chair, and sternly faced the man who had spoken those insolent words.

“Are you mad?” he asked.

Herbert was on the point of declaring himself to have been Catherine’s husband, until the law dissolved their marriage–when a waiter came in and approached him with a message. “You are wanted immediately, sir.”

“Who wants me?”

“A person outside, sir. It’s a serious matter–there is not a moment to lose.”

Herbert turned to the Captain. “I must have your promise to wait for me,” he said, “or I don’t leave the room.”

“Make your mind easy. I shall not stir from this place till you have explained yourself,” was the firm reply.

The servant led the way out. He crossed the passage, and opened the door of a waiting-room. Herbert passed in–and found himself face to face with his
divorced wife.

Chapter L.

Forgiveness to the Injured Doth Belong.

Without one word of explanation, Catherine stepped up to him, and spoke first.

“Answer me this,” she said–“have you told Captain Bennydeck who I am?”

“Not yet.”

The shortest possible reply was the only reply that he could make, in the moment when he first looked at her.

She was not the same woman whom he had last seen at Sandyseal, returning for her lost book. The agitation produced by that unexpected meeting had turned her pale; the overpowering sense of injury had hardened and aged her face. This time, she was prepared to see him; this time, she was conscious of a resolution that raised her in her own estimation. Her clear blue eyes glittered as she looked at him, the bright color glowed in her cheeks; he was literally dazzled by her beauty.

“In the past time, which we both remember,” she resumed, “you once said that I was the most truthful woman you had ever known. Have I done anything to disturb that part of your old faith in me?”

“Nothing.”

She went on: “Before you entered this house, I had determined to tell Captain Bennydeck what you have not told him yet. When I say that, do you believe me?”

If he had been able to look away from her, he might have foreseen what was coming; and he would have remembered that his triumph over the Captain was still incomplete. But his eyes were riveted on her face; his tenderest memories of her were pleading with him. He answered as a docile child might have answered.

“I do believe you.”

She took a letter from her bosom; and, showing it, begged him to remark that it was not closed.

“I was in my bedroom writing,” she said, “When my mother came to me and told me that you and Captain Bennydeck had met in my sitting-room. She dreaded a quarrel and an exposure, and she urged me to go downstairs and insist on sending you away–or permit her to do so, if I could not prevail on myself to follow her advice. I refused to allow the shameful dismissal of a man who had once had his claim on my respect. The only alternative that I could see was to speak with you here, in private, as we are speaking now. My mother undertook to manage this for me; she saw the servant, and gave him the message which you received. Where is Captain Bennydeck now?”

“He is waiting in the sitting-room.”

“Waiting for you?

“Yes.”

She considered a little before she said her next words.

“I have brought with me what I was writing in my own room,” she resumed, “wishing to show it to you. Will you read it?”

She offered the letter to him. He hesitated. “Is it addressed to me?” he asked.

“It is addressed to Captain Bennydeck,” she answered.

The jealousy that still rankled in his mind–jealousy that he had no more lawful or reasonable claim to feel than if he had been a stranger–urged him to assume an indifference which he was far from feeling. He begged that Catherine would accept his excuses.

She refused to excuse him.

“Before you decide,” she said, “you ought at least to know why I have written to Captain Bennydeck, instead of speaking to him as I had proposed. My heart failed me when I thought of the distress that he might feel–and, perhaps of the contempt of myself which, good and gentle as he is, he might not be able to disguise. My letter tells him the truth, without concealment. I am obliged to speak of the manner in which you have treated me, and of the circumstances which forced me into acts of deception that I now bitterly regret. I have tried not to misrepresent you; I have been anxious to do you no wrong. It is for you, not for me, to say if I have succeeded. Once more, will you read my letter?”

The sad self-possession, the quiet dignity with which she spoke, appealed to his memory of the pardon that she had so generously granted, while he and Sydney Westerfield were still guiltless of the injury inflicted on her at a later time. Silently he took the letter from her, and read it.

She kept her face turned away from him and from the light. The effort to be still calm and reasonable–to suffer the heart-ache, and not to let the suffering be seen–made cruel demands on the self-betraying nature of a woman possessed by strong emotion. There was a moment when she heard him sigh while he was reading. She looked round at him, and instantly looked away again.

He rose and approached her; he held out the letter in one hand, and pointed to it with the other. Twice he attempted to speak. Twice the influence of the letter unmanned him.

It was a hard struggle, but it was for her sake: he mastered his weakness, and forced his trembling voice to submit to his will.

“Is the man whom you are going to marry worthy of _this?_” he asked, still pointing to the letter.

She answered, firmly: “More than worthy of it.”

“Marry him, Catherine–and forget Me.”

The great heart that he had so sorely wounded pitied him, forgave him, answered him with a burst of tears. She held out one imploring hand.

His lips touched it–he was gone.

Chapter LI.

Dum Spiro, Spero.

Brisk and smiling, Mrs. Presty presented herself in the waiting-room. “We have got rid of our enemy!” she announced, “I looked out of the window and saw him leaving the hotel.” She paused, struck with the deep dejection expressed in her daughter’s attitude. “Catherine!” she exclaimed, “I tell you Herbert has gone, and you look as if you regretted it! Is there anything wrong? Did my message fail to bring him here?”

“No.”

“He was bent on mischief when I saw him last. Has he told Bennydeck of the Divorce?”

“No.”

“Thank Heaven for that! There is no one to be afraid of now. Where is the Captain?”

“He is still in the sitting-room.”

“Why don’t you go to him?”

“I daren’t!”

“Shall I go?”

“Yes–and give him this.”

Mrs. Presty took the letter. “You mean, tear it up,” she said, and quite right, too.”

“No; I mean what l say.”

“My dear child, if you have any regard for yourself, if you have any regard for me, don’t ask me to give Bennydeck this mad letter! You won’t hear reason? You still insist on it?”

“I do.”

“If Kitty ever behaves to you, Catherine, as you have behaved to me–you will have richly deserved it. Oh, if you were only a child again, I’d beat it out of you–I would!”

With that outburst of temper, she took the letter to Bennydeck. In less than a minute she returned, a tamed woman. “He frightens me,” she said.

“Is he angry?”

“No–and that is the worst of it. When men are angry, I am never afraid of them. He’s quiet, too quiet. He said: ‘I’m waiting for Mr. Herbert Linley; where is he?’ I said. ‘He has left the hotel.’ He said: ‘What does that mean?’ I handed the letter to him. ‘Perhaps this will explain,’ I said. He looked at the address, and at once recognized your handwriting. ‘Why does she write to me when we are both in the same house? Why doesn’t she speak to me?’ I pointed to the letter. He wouldn’t look at it; he looked straight at me. ‘There’s some mystery here,’ he said; ‘I’m a plain man, I don’t like mysteries. Mr. Linley had something to say to me, when the message interrupted him. Who sent the message? Do you know?’ If there is a woman living, Catherine, who would have told the truth, in such a position as mine was at that moment, I should like to have her photograph. I said I didn’t know- and I saw he suspected me of deceiving him. Those kind eyes of his–you wouldn’t believe it of them!–looked me through and through. ‘I won’t detain you any longer,’ he said. I’m not easily daunted, as you know–the relief it was to me to get away from him is not to be told in words. What do you think I heard when I got into the passage? I heard him turn the key of the door. He’s locked in, my dear; he’s locked in! We are too near him here. Come upstairs.”

Catherine refused. “I ought to be near him,” she said, hopefully; “he may wish to see me.”

Her mother reminded her that the waiting-room was a public room, and might be wanted.

“Let’s go into the garden,” Mrs. Presty proposed. “We can tell the servant who waits on us where we may be found.”

Catherine yielded. Mrs. Presty’s excitement found its overflow in talking perpetually. Her daughter had nothing to say, and cared nothing wh ere they went; all outward manifestation of life in her seemed to be suspended at that terrible time of expectation. They wandered here and there, in the quietest part of the grounds. Half an hour passed–and no message was received. The hotel clock struck the hour–and still nothing happened.

“I can walk no longer,” Catherine said. She dropped on one of the garden-chairs, holding by her mother’s hand. “Go to him, for God’s sake!” she entreated. “I can endure it no longer.”

Mrs. Presty–even bold Mrs. Presty–was afraid to face him again. “He’s fond of the child,” she suggested; “let’s send Kitty.”

Some little girls were at play close by who knew where Kitty was to be found. In a few minutes more they brought her back with them. Mrs. Presty gave the child her instructions, and sent her away proud of her errand, and delighted at the prospect of visiting the Captain by herself, as if she “was a grown-up lady.”

This time the period of suspense was soon at an end. Kitty came running back. “It’s lucky you sent me,” she declared. “He wouldn’t have opened the door to anybody else–he said so himself.”

“Did you knock softly, as I told you?” Mrs. Presty asked.

“No, grandmamma, I forgot that. I tried to open the door. He called out not to disturb him. I said, ‘It’s only me,’ and he opened the door directly. What makes him look so pale, mamma? Is he ill?”

“Perhaps he feels the heat,” Mrs. Presty suggested, judiciously.

“He said, ‘Dear little Kitty,’ and he caught me up in his arms and kissed me. When he sat down again he took me on his knee, and he asked if I was fond of him, and I said, ‘Yes, I am,’ and he kissed me again, and he asked if I had come to stay with him and keep him company. I forgot what you wanted me to say,” Kitty acknowledged, addressing Mrs. Presty; “so I made it up out of my own head.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him, mamma was as fond of him as I was, and I said, ‘We will both keep you company.’ He put me down on the floor, and he got up and went to the window and looked out. I told him that wasn’t the way to find her, and I said, ‘I know where she is; I’ll go and fetch her.’ He’s an obstinate man, our nice Captain. He wouldn’t come away from the window. I said, ‘You wish to see mamma, don’t you?’ And he said ‘Yes.’ ‘You mustn’t lock the door again,’ I told him, ‘she won’t like that’; and what do you think he said? He said ‘Good-by, Kitty!’ Wasn’t it funny? He didn’t seem to know what he was talking about. If you ask my opinion, mamma, I think the sooner you go to him the better.” Catherine hesitated. Mrs. Presty on one side, and Kitty on the other, led her between them into the house.

Chapter LII.

L’homme propose, et Dieu dispose.

Captain Bennydeck met Catherine and her child at the open door of the room. Mrs. Presty, stopping a few paces behind them, waited in the passage; eager to see what the Captain’s face might tell her. It told her nothing.

But Catherine saw a change in him. There was something in his manner unnaturally passive and subdued. It suggested the idea of a man whose mind had been forced into an effort of self-control which had exhausted its power, and had allowed the signs of depression and fatigue to find their way to the surface. The Captain was quiet, the Captain was kind; neither by word nor look did he warn Catherine that the continuity of their intimacy was in danger of being broken–and yet, her spirits sank, when they met at the open door.

He led her to a chair, and said she had come to him at a time when he especially wished to speak with her. Kitty asked if she might remain with them. He put his hand caressingly on her head; “No, my dear, not now.”

The child eyed him for a moment, conscious of something which she had never noticed in him before, and puzzled by the discovery. She walked back, cowed and silent, to the door. He followed her and spoke to Mrs. Presty.

“Take your grandchild into the garden; we will Join you there in a little while. Good-by for the present, Kitty.”

Kitty said good-by mechanically–like a dull child repeating a lesson. Her grandmother led her away in silence.

Bennydeck closed the door and seated himself by Catherine.

“I thank you for your letter,” he said. “If such a thing is possible, it has given me a higher opinion of you than any opinion that I have held yet.”

She looked at him with a feeling of surprise, so sudden and so overwhelming that she was at a loss how to reply. The last words which she expected to hear from him, when he alluded to her confession, were the words that had just passed his lips.

“You have owned to faults that you have committed, and deceptions that you have sanctioned,” he went on–“with nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by telling the truth. Who but a good woman would have done that?”

There was a deeper feeling in him than he had ventured to express. It betrayed itself by a momentary trembling in his voice. Catherine drew a little closer to him.

“You don’t know how you surprise me, how you relieve me,” she said, warmly–and pressed his hand. In the eagerness of her gratitude, in the gladness that had revived her sinking heart, she failed to feel that the pressure was not returned.

“What have I said to surprise you?” he asked. “What anxiety have I relieved, without knowing it?”

“I was afraid you would despise me.”

“Why should I despise you?”

“Have I not gained your good opinion under false pretenses? Have I not allowed you to admire me and to love me without telling you that there was anything in my past life which I have reason to regret? Even now, I can hardly realize that you excuse and forgive me; you, who have read the confession of my worst faults; you, who know the shocking inconsistencies of my character–“

“Say at once,” he answered, “that I know you to be a mortal creature. Is there any human character, even the noblest, that is always consistently good?”

“One reads of them sometimes,” she suggested, “in books.”

“Yes,” he said. “In the worst books you could possibly read–the only really immoral books written in our time.”

“Why are they immoral?”

“For this plain reason, that they deliberately pervert the truth. Clap-trap, you innocent creature, to catch foolish readers! When do these consistently good people appear in the life around us, the life that we all see? Never! Are the best mortals that ever lived above the reach of temptation to do ill, and are they always too good to yield to it? How does the Lord’s Prayer instruct humanity? It commands us all, without exception, to pray that we may not be led into temptation. You have been led into temptation. In other words, you are a human being. All that a human being could do you have done–you have repented and confessed. Don’t I know how you have suffered and how you have been tried! Why, what a mean Pharisee I should be if I presumed to despise you!”

She looked at him proudly and gratefully; she lifted her arm as if to thank him by an embrace, and suddenly let it drop again at her side.

“Am I tormenting myself without cause?” she said. “Or is there something that looks like sorrow, showing itself to me in your face?”

“You see the bitterest sorrow that I have felt in all my sad life.”

“Is it sorrow for me?”

“No. Sorrow for myself.”

“Has it come to you through me? Is it my fault?”

“It is more your misfortune than your fault.”

“Then you can feel for me?”

“I can and do.”

He had not yet set her at ease.

“I am afraid your sympathy stops somewhere,” she said. “Where does it stop?”

For the first time, he shrank from directly answering her. “I begin to wish I had followed your example,” he owned. “It might have been better for both of us if I had answered your letter in writing.”

“Tell me plainly,” she cried, “is there something you can’t forgive?”

“There is something I can’t forget.”

“What is it? Oh, what is it! When my mother told poor little Kitty that her father was dead, are you even more sorry than I am that I allowed it? Are you even more ashamed of me than I am of myself?”

“No. I regret that you allowed it; but I understand how you were led into that error. Your husband’s infidelity had shaken his hold on your respect for him and your sympathy with him, and had so left you without your natural safeguard against Mrs. Presty’s sophistical reasoning and bad example. But for _that_ wrong-doing, there is a remedy left. Enlighten your child as you have enlightened me; and then–I have no personal motive for pleading Mr. Herbert Linley’s cause, after what I have seen of him–and then, acknowledge the father’s claim on the child.”

“Do you mean his claim to see her?”

“What else can I mean? Yes! let him see her. Do (God help me, now when it’s too late!)–do what you ought to have done, on that accursed day which will be the blackest day in my calendar, to the end of my life.”

“What day do you mean?”

“The day when you remembered the law of man, and forgot the law of God; the day when you broke the marriage tie, the sacred tie, by a Divorce!”

She listened–not conscious now of suspense or fear; she listened, with her whole heart in revolt against him.

“You are too cruel!” she declared. “You can feel for me, you can understand me, you can pardon me in everything else that I have done. But you judge without mercy of the one blameless act of my life, since my husband left me–the act that protected a mother in the exercise of her rights. Oh, can it be you? Can it be you?”

“It can be,” he said, sighing bitterly; “and it is.”

“What horrible delusion possesses you? Why do you curse the happy day, the blessed day, which saw me safe in the possession of my child?”

“For the worst and meanest of reasons,” he answered–“a selfish reason. Don’t suppose that I have spoken of Divorce as one who has had occasion to think of it. I have had no occasion to think of it; I don’t think of it even now. I abhor it because it stands between you and me. I loathe it, I curse it because it separates us for life.”

“Separates us for life? How?”

“Can you ask me?”

“Yes, I do ask you!”

He looked round him. A society of religious persons had visited the hotel, and had obtained permission to place a copy of the Bible in every room. One of those copies lay on the chimney-piece in Catherine’s room. Bennydeck brought it to her, and placed it on the table near which she was sitting. He turned to the New Testament, and opened it at the Gospel of Saint Matthew. With his hand on the page, he said:

“I have done my best rightly to understand the duties of a Christian. One of those duties, as I interpret them, is to let what I believe show itself in what I do. You have seen enough of me, I hope, to know (though I have not been forward in speaking of it) that I am, to the best of my poor ability, a faithful follower of the teachings of Christ. I dare not set my own interests and my own happiness above His laws. If I suffer in obeying them as I suffer now, I must still submit. They are the laws of my life.”

“Is it through me that you suffer?”

“It is through you.”

“Will you tell me how?”

He had already found the chapter. His tears dropped on it as he pointed to the verse.

“Read,” he answered, “what the most compassionate of all Teachers has said, in the Sermon on the Mount.”

She read: “Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.”

Another innocent woman, in her place, might have pointed to that first part of the verse, which pre-supposes the infidelity of the divorced wife, and might have asked if those words applied to _her_. This woman, knowing that she had lost him, knew also what she owed to herself She rose in silence, and held out her hand at parting.

He paused before he took her hand. “Can you forgive me?” he asked.

She said: “I can pity you.”

“Can you look back to the day of your marriage? Can you remember the words which declared the union between you and your husband to be separable only by death? Has he treated you with brutal cruelty?”

“Never!”

“Has he repented of his sin?”

“Yes.”

“Ask your own conscience if there is not a worthier life for you and your child than the life that you are leading now.” He waited, after that appeal to her. The silence remained unbroken. “Do not mistake me,” he resumed gently. “I am not thinking of the calamity that has fallen on me in a spirit of selfish despair–I am looking to _your_ future, and I am trying to show you the way which leads to hope. Catherine! have you no word more to say to me?”

In faint trembling tones she answered him at last:

“You have left me but one word to say. Farewell!”

He drew her to him gently, and kissed her on the forehead. The agony in his face was more than she could support; she recoiled from it in horror. His last act was devoted to the tranquillity of the one woman whom he had loved. He signed to her to leave him.

Chapter LIII.

The Largest Nature, the Longest Love.

Mrs. Presty waited in the garden to be joined by her daughter and Captain Bennydeck, and waited in vain. It was past her grandchild’s bedtime; she decided on returning to the house.

“Suppose we look for them in the sitting-room?” Kitty proposed.

“Suppose we wait a moment, before we go in?” her wise grandmother advised. “If I hear them talking I shall take you upstairs to bed.”

“Why?”

Mrs. Presty favored Kitty with a hint relating to the management of inquisitive children which might prove useful to her in after-life. “When you grow up to be a woman, my dear, beware of making the mistake that I have just committed. Never be foolish enough to mention your reasons when a child asks, Why;”

“Was that how they treated _you_, grandmamma, when you were a child yourself?”

“Of course it was!”

“Why?”

They had reached the sitting-room door by this time. Kitty opened it without ceremony and looked in. The room was empty.

Having confided her granddaughter to the nursemaid’s care, Mrs. Presty knocked at Catherine’s bedroom door. “May I come in?”

“Come in directly! Where is Kitty?”

“Susan is putting her to bed.”

“Stop it! Kitty mustn’t go to bed. No questions. I’ll explain myself when you come back.” There was a wildness in her eyes, and a tone of stern command in her voice, which warned her mother to set dignity aside, and submit.

“I don’t ask what has happened,” Mrs. Presty resumed on her return. “That letter, that fatal letter to the Captain, has justified my worst fears. What in Heaven’s name are we to do now?”

“We are to leave this hotel,” was the instant reply.

“When?”

“To-night.”

“Catherine! do you know what time it is?”

“Time enough to catch the last train to London. Don’t raise objections! If I stay at this place, with associations in every part of it which remind me of that unhappy man, I shall go mad! The shock I have suffered, the misery, the humiliation–I tell you it’s more than I can bear. Stay here by yourself if you like; I mean to go.”

She paced with frantic rapidity up and down the room. Mrs. Presty took the only way by which it was possible to calm her. “Compose yourself, Catherine, and all that you wish shall be done. I’ll settle everything with the landlord, and give the maid her orders. Sit down by the open window; let the wind blow over you.”

The railway service from Sydenham to London is a late service. At a few minutes before midnight they were in time for the last train. When they left the station, Catherine was calm enough to communicate her plans for the future. The nearest hotel to the terminus would offer them accommodation for that night. On the next day they could find some quiet place in the country–no matter where, so long as they were not disturbed. “Give me rest and peace, and my mind will be easier,” Catherine said. “Let nobody know where to find me.”

These conditions were strictly observed–with an exception in favor of Mr. Sarrazin. While his client’s pecuniary affairs were still unsettled, the lawyer had his claim to be taken into her confidence.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The next morning found Captain Bennydeck still keeping his rooms at Sydenham. The state of his mind presented a complete contrast to the state of Catherine’s mind. So far from sharing her aversion to the personal associations which were connected with the hotel, he found his one consolation in visiting the scenes which reminded him of the beloved woman whom he had lost. The reason f or this was not far to seek. His was the largest nature, and his had been the most devoted love.

As usual, his letters were forwarded to him from his place of residence in London. Those addressed in handwritings that he knew were the first that he read. The others he took out with him to that sequestered part of the garden in which he had passed the happiest hours of his life by Catherine’s side.

He had been thinking of her all the morning; he was thinking of her now.

His better judgment protested; his accusing conscience warned him that he was committing, not only an act of folly but (with his religious convictions) an act of sin–and still she held her place in his thoughts. The manager had told him of her sudden departure from the hotel, and had declared with perfect truth that the place of her destination had not been communicated to him. Asked if she had left no directions relating to her correspondence, he had replied that his instructions were to forward all letters to her lawyer. On the point of inquiring next for the name and address, Bennydeck’s sense of duty and sense of shame (roused at last) filled him with a timely contempt for himself. In feeling tempted to write to Catherine–in encouraging fond thoughts of her among scenes which kept her in his memory–he had been false to the very principles to which he had appealed at their farewell interview. She had set him the right example, the example which he was determined to follow, in leaving the place. Before he could falter in his resolution, he gave notice of his departure. The one hope for him now was to find a refuge from himself in acts of mercy. Consolation was perhaps waiting for him in his Home.

His unopened correspondence offered a harmless occupation to his thoughts, in the meanwhile. One after another he read the letters, with an attention constantly wandering and constantly recalled, until he opened the last of them that remained. In a moment more his interest was absorbed. The first sentences in the letter told him that the deserted creature whom he had met in the garden–the stranger to whom he had offered help and consolation in the present and in the future–was no other than the lost girl of whom he had been so long in search; the daughter of Roderick Westerfield, once his dearest and oldest friend.

In the pages that followed, the writer confided to him her sad story; leaving it to her father’s friend to decide whether she was worthy of the sympathy which he had offered to her, when he thought she was a stranger.

This part of her letter was necessarily a repetition of what Bennydeck had read, in the confession which Catherine had addressed to him. That generous woman had been guilty of one, and but one, concealment of the truth. In relating the circumstances under which the elopement from Mount Morven had taken place, she had abstained, in justice to the sincerity of Sydney’s repentance, from mentioning Sydney’s name. “Another instance,” the Captain thought bitterly, as he closed the letter, “of the virtues which might have made the happiness of my life!”

But he was bound to remember–and he did remember–that there was now a new interest, tenderly associating itself with his life to come. The one best way of telling Sydney how dear she was to him already, for her father’s sake, would be to answer her in person. He hurried away to London by the first train, and drove at once to Randal’s place of abode to ask for Sydney’s address.

Wondering what had become of the postscript to his letter, which had given Bennydeck the information of which he was now in search, Randal complied with his friend’s request, and then ventured to allude to the report of the Captain’s marriage engagement.

“Am I to congratulate you?” he asked.

“Congratulate me on having discovered Roderick Westerfield’s daughter.”

That reply, and the tone in which it was given, led Randal to ask if the engagement had been prematurely announced.

“There is no engagement at all,” Bennydeck answered, with a look which suggested that it might be wise not to dwell on the subject.

But the discovery was welcome to Randal, for his brother’s sake. He ran the risk of consequences, and inquired if Catherine was still to be found at the hotel.

The Captain answered by a sign in the negative.

Randal persisted. “Do you know where she has gone?”

“Nobody knows but her lawyer.”

“In that case,” Randal concluded, “I shall get the information that I want.” Noticing that Bennydeck looked surprised, he mentioned his motive. “Herbert is pining to see Kitty,” h continued; “and I mean to help him. He has done all that a man could do to atone for the past. As things are, I believe I shall not offend Catherine, if I arrange for a meeting between father and child. What do you say?”

Bennydeck answered, earnestly and eagerly: “Do it at once!”

They left the house together–one to go to Sydney’s lodgings, the other on his way to Mr. Sarrazin’s office.

Chapter LIV.

Let Bygones Be Bygones.

When the servant at the lodgings announced a visitor, and mentioned his name, Sydney’s memory (instead of dwelling on the recollection of the Captain’s kindness) perversely recalled the letter that she had addressed to him, and reminded her that she stood in need of indulgence, which even so good a man might hesitate to grant. Bennydeck’s first words told the friendless girl that her fears had wronged him.

My dear, how like your father you are! You have his eyes and his smile; I can’t tell you how pleasantly you remind me of my dear old friend.” He took her hand, and kissed her as he might have kissed a daughter of his own. “Do you remember me at home, Sydney, when you were a child? No: you must have been too young for that.”

She was deeply touched. In faint trembling tones she said; “I remember your name; my poor father often spoke of you.”

A man who feels true sympathy is never in danger of mistaking his way to a woman’s heart, when that woman has suffered. Bennydeck consoled, interested, charmed Sydney, by still speaking of the bygone days at home.

“I well remember how fond your father was of you, and what a bright little girl you were,” the Captain went on. “You have forgotten, I dare say, the old-fashioned sea-songs that he used to be so fond of teaching you. It was the strangest and prettiest contrast, to hear your small piping child’s voice singing of storms and shipwrecks, and thunder and lightning, and reefing sails in cold and darkness, without the least idea of what it all meant. Your mother was strict in those days; you never amused her as you used to amuse your father and me. When she caught you searching my pockets for sweetmeats, she accused me of destroying your digestion before you were five years old. I went on spoiling it, for all that. The last time I saw you, my child, your father was singing ‘The Mariners of England,’ and you were on his knee trying to sing with him. You must have often wondered why you never saw anything more of me. Did you think I had forgotten you?”

“I am quite sure I never thought that!”

“You see I was in the Navy at the time,” the Captain resumed; “and we were ordered away to a foreign station. When I got back to England, miserable news was waiting for me. I heard of your father’s death and of that shameful Trial. Poor fellow! He was as innocent, Sydney, as you are of the offense which he was accused of committing. The first thing I did was to set inquiries on foot after your mother and her children. It was some consolation to me to feel that I was rich enough to make your lives easy and agreeable to you. I thought money could do anything. A serious mistake, my dear–money couldn’t find the widow and her children. We supposed you were somewhere in London; and there, to my great grief, it ended. From time to time–long afterward, when we thought we had got the clew in our hands–I continued my inquiries, still without success. A poor woman and her little family are so easily engulfed in the big city! Years passed (more of them than I like to reckon up) before I heard of you at last by name. The person from whom I got my information told me how you were employed, and where.”

“O h, Captain Bennydeck, who could the person have been?”

“A poor old broken-down actor, Sydney. You were his favorite pupil. Do you remember him?”

“I should be ungrateful indeed if I could forget him. He was the only person in the school who was kind to me. Is the good old man still living?”

“No; he rests at last. I am glad to say I was able to make his last days on earth the happiest days of his life.”

“I wonder,” Sydney confessed, “how you met with him.”

“There was nothing at all romantic in my first discovery of him. I was reading the police reports in a newspaper. The poor wretch was brought before a magistrate, charged with breaking a window. His one last chance of escaping starvation in the streets was to get sent to prison. The magistrate questioned him, and brought to light a really heart-breaking account of misfortune, imbittered by neglect on the part of people in authority who were bound to help him. He was remanded, so that inquiries might be made. I attended the court on the day when he appeared there again, and heard his statement confirmed. I paid his fine, and contrived to put him in a way of earning a little money. He was very grateful, and came now and then to thank me. In that way I heard how his troubles had begun. He had asked for a small advance on the wretched wages that he received. Can you guess how the schoolmistress answered him?”

“I know but too well how she answered him,” Sydney said; “I was turned out of the house, too.”

“And I heard of it,” the Captain replied, “from the woman herself. Everything that could distress me she was ready to mention. She told me of your mother’s second marriage, of her miserable death, of the poor boy, your brother, missing, and never heard of since. But when I asked where you had gone she had nothing more to say. She knew nothing, and cared nothing, about you. If I had not become acquainted with Mr. Randal Linley, I might never have heard of you again. We will say no more of that, and no more of anything that has happened in the past time. From to-day, my dear, we begin a new life, and (please God) a happier life. Have you any plans of your own for the future?”

“Perhaps, if I could find help,” Sydney said resignedly, “I might emigrate. Pride wouldn’t stand in my way; no honest employment would be beneath my notice. Besides, if I went to America, I might meet with my brother.”

“My dear child, after the time that has passed, there is no imaginable chance of your meeting with your brother–and you wouldn’t know each other again if you did meet. Give up that vain hope and stay here with me. Be useful and be happy in your own country.”

“Useful?” Sydney repeated sadly. “Your own kind heart, Captain Bennydeck, is deceiving you. To be useful means, I suppose, to help others. Who will accept help from me?”

“I will, for one,” the Captain answered.

“You!”

“Yes. You can be of the greatest use to me–you shall hear how.”

He told her of the founding of his Home and of the good it had done. “You are the very person,” he resumed, “to be the good sister-friend that I want for my poor girls: _you_ can say for them what they cannot always say to me for themselves.”

The tears rose in Sydney’s eyes. “It is hard to see such a prospect as that,” she said, “and to give it up as soon as it is seen.”

“Why give it up?”

“Because I am not fit for it. You are as good as a father to those lost daughters of yours. If you give them a sister-friend she ought to have set them a good example. Have I done that? Will they listen to a girl who is no better than themselves?”

“Gladly! _Your_ sympathy will find its way to their hearts, because it is animated by something that they can all feel in common–something nearer and dearer to them than a sense of duty. You won’t consent, Sydney, for their sakes? Will you do what I ask of you, for my sake?”

She looked at him, hardly able to understand–or, as it might have been, perhaps afraid to understand him. He spoke to her more plainly.

“I have kept it concealed from you,” he continued–“for why should I lay my load of suffering on a friend so young as you are, so cruelly tried already? Let me only say that I am in great distress. If you were with me, my child, I might be better able to bear it.”

He held out his hand. Even a happy woman could hardly have found it in her heart to resist him. In silent sympathy and respect, Sydney kissed the hand that he had offered to her. It was the one way in which she could trust herself to answer him.

Still encouraging her to see new hopes and new interests in the future, the good Captain spoke of the share which she might take in the management of the Home, if she would like to be his secretary. With this view he showed her some written reports, relating to the institution, which had been sent to him during the time of his residence at Sydenham. She read them with an interest and attention which amply justified his confidence in her capacity.

“These reports,” he explained to her, “are kept for reference; but as a means of saving time, the substance of them is entered in the daily journal of our proceedings. Come, Sydney! venture on a first experiment in your new character. I see pen, ink, and paper on the table; try if you can shorten one of the reports, without leaving out anything which it is important to know. For instance, the writer gives reasons for making his statement. Very well expressed, no doubt, but we don’t want reasons. Then, again, he offers his own opinion on the right course to take. Very creditable to him, but I don’t want his opinion–I want his facts. Take the pen, my secretary, and set down his facts. Never mind his reflections.”

Proud and pleased, Sydney obeyed him. She had made her little abstract, and was reading it to him at his request, while he compared it with the report, when they were interrupted by a visitor. Randal Linley came in, and noticed the papers on the table with surprise. “Is it possible that I am interrupting business?” he asked.

Bennydeck answered with the assumed air of importance which was in itself a compliment to Sydney: “You find me engaged on the business of the Home with my new secretary.”

Randal at once understood what had happened. He took his friend’s arm, and led him to the other end of the room.

“You good fellow!” he said. “Add to your kindness by excusing me if I ask for a word with you in private.”

Sydney rose to retire. After having encouraged her by a word of praise, the Captain proposed that she should get ready to go out, and should accompany him on a visit to the Home. He opened the door for her as respectfully as if the poor girl had been one of the highest ladies in the land.

“I have seen my friend Sarrazin,” Randal began, “and I have persuaded him to trust me with Catherine’s present address. I can send Herbert there immediately, if you will only help me.”

“How can I help you?”

“Will you allow me to tell my brother that your engagement is broken off?”

Bennydeck shrank from the painful allusion, and showed it.

Randal explained. “I am grieved,” he said, “to distress you by referring to this subject again. But if my brother is left under the false impression that your engagement will be followed by your marriage, he will refuse to intrude himself on the lady who was once his wife.”

The Captain understood. “Say what you please about me,” he replied. “Unite the father and child–and you may reconcile the husband and wife.”

“Have you forgotten,” Randal asked, “that the marriage has been dissolved?”

Bennydeck’s answer ignored the law. “I remember,” he said, “that the marriage has been profaned.”

Chapter LV.

Leave It to the Child.

The front windows of Brightwater Cottage look out on a quiet green lane in Middlesex, which joins the highroad within a few miles of the market town of Uxbridge. Through the pretty garden at the back runs a little brook, winding its merry way to a distant river. The few rooms in this pleasant place of residence are well (too well) furnished, having regard to the limits of a building which is a cottage in the strictest sense of the word. Water-color drawings by the old English masters of the art ornament the dinin g-room. The parlor has been transformed into a library. From floor to ceiling all four of its walls are covered with books. Their old and well-chosen bindings, seen in the mass, present nothing less than a feast of color to the eye. The library and the works of art are described as heirlooms, which have passed into the possession of the present proprietor–one more among the hundreds of Englishmen who are ruined every year by betting on the Turf.

So sorely in need of a little ready money was this victim of gambling–tacitly permitted or conveniently ignored by the audacious hypocrisy of a country which rejoiced in the extinction of Baden, and which still shudders at the name of Monaco–that he was ready to let his pretty cottage for no longer a term than one month certain; and he even allowed the elderly lady, who drove the hardest of hard bargains with him, to lessen by one guinea the house-rent paid for each week. He took his revenge by means of an ironical compliment, addressed to Mrs. Presty. “What a saving it would be to the country, ma’am, if you were Chancellor of the Exchequer!” With perfect gravity Mrs. Presty accepted that well-earned tribute of praise. “You are quite right, sir; I should be the first official person known to the history of England who took proper care of the public money.”

Within two days of the time when they had left the hotel at Sydenham, Catherine and her little family circle had taken possession of the cottage.

The two ladies were sitting in the library each occupied with a book chosen from the well-stocked shelves. Catherine’s reading appeared to be more than once interrupted by Catherine’s thoughts. Noticing this circumstance, Mrs. Presty asked if some remarkable event had happened, and if it was weighing heavily on her daughter’s mind.

Catherine answered that she was thinking of Kitty, and that anxiety connected with the child did weigh heavily on her mind.

Some days had passed (she reminded Mrs. Presty) since the interview at which Herbert Linley had bidden her farewell. On that occasion he had referred to her proposed marriage (never to be a marriage now!) in terms of forbearance and generosity which claimed her sincerest admiration. It might be possible for her to show a grateful appreciation of his conduct. Devotedly fond of his little daughter, he must have felt acutely his long separation from her; and it was quite likely that he might ask to see Kitty. But there was an obstacle in the way of her willing compliance with that request, which it was impossible to think of without remorse, and which it was imperatively necessary to remove. Mrs. Presty would understand that she alluded to the shameful falsehood which had led the child to suppose that her father was dead.

Strongly disapproving of the language in which her daughter had done justice to the conduct of the divorced husband, Mrs. Presty merely replied: “You are Kitty’s mother; I leave it to you”–and returned to her reading.

Catherine could not feel that she had deserved such an answer as this. “Did I plan the deception?” she asked. “Did I tell the lie?”

Mrs. Presty was not in the least offended. “You are comparatively innocent, my dear,” she admitted, with an air of satirical indulgence. “You only consented to the deception, and profited by the lie. Suppose we own the truth? You are afraid.”

Catherine owned the truth in the plainest terms:

“Yes, I _am_ afraid.”

“And you leave it to me?”

“I leave it to you.”

Mrs. Presty complacently closed her book. “I was quite prepared to hear it,” she said; “all the unpleasant complications since your Divorce–and Heaven only knows how many of them have presented themselves–have been left for me to unravel. It so happens–though I was too modest to mention it prematurely–that I have unraveled _this_ complication. If one only has eyes to see it, there is a way out of every difficulty that can possibly happen.” She pushed the book that she had been reading across the table to Catherine. “Turn to page two hundred and forty,” she said. “There is the way out.”

The title of the book was “Disasters at Sea”; and the page contained the narrative of a shipwreck. On evidence apparently irresistible, the drowning of every soul on board the lost vessel had been taken for granted–when a remnant of the passengers and crew had been discovered on a desert island, and had been safely restored to their friends. Having read this record of suffering and suspense, Catherine looked at her mother, and waited for an explanation.

“Don’t you see it?” Mrs. Presty asked.

“I can’t say that I do.”

The old lady’s excellent temper was not in the least ruffled, even by this.

“Quite inexcusable on my part,” she acknowledged; “I ought to have remembered that you don’t inherit your mother’s vivid imagination. Age has left me in full possession of those powers of invention which used to amaze your poor father. He wondered how it was that I never wrote a novel. Mr. Presty’s appreciation of my intellect was equally sincere; but he took a different view. ‘Beware, my dear,’ he said, ‘of trifling with the distinction which you now enjoy: you are one of the most remarkable women in England–you have never written a novel.’ Pardon me; I am wandering into the region of literary anecdote, when I ought to explain myself. Now pray attend to this:–I propose to tell Kitty that I have found a book which is sure to interest her; and I shall direct her attention to the lamentable story which you have just read. She is quite sharp enough (there are sparks of my intellectual fire in Kitty) to ask if the friends of the poor shipwrecked people were not very much surprised to see them again. To this I shall answer: ‘Very much, indeed, for their friends thought they were dead.’ Ah, you dear dull child, you see it now!”

Catherine saw it so plainly that she was eager to put the first part of the experiment to an immediate trial.

Kitty was sent for, and made her appearance with a fishing-rod over her shoulder. “I’m going to the brook,” she announced; “expect some fish for dinner to-day.”

A wary old hand stopped Catherine, in the act of presenting “Disasters at Sea,” to Kitty’s notice; and a voice, distinguished by insinuating kindness, said to the child: “When you have done fishing, my dear, come to me; I have got a nice book for you to read.–How very absurd of you, Catherine,” Mrs. Presty continued, when they were alone again, “to expect the child to read, and draw her own conclusions, while her head is full of fishing! If there are any fish in the brook, _she_ won’t catch them. When she comes back disappointed and says: ‘What am I to do now?’ the ‘Disasters at Sea’ will have a chance. I make it a rule never to boast; but if there is a thing that I understand, it’s the management of children. Why didn’t I have a large family?”

Attended by the faithful Susan, Kitty baited her hook, and began to fish where the waters of the brook were overshadowed by trees.

A little arbor covered by a thatched roof, and having walls of wooden lattice-work, hidden by creepers climbing over them inside and out, offered an attractive place of rest on this sheltered side of the garden. Having brought her work with her, the nursemaid retired to the summer-house and diligently plied her needle, looking at Kitty from time to time through the open door. The air was delightfully cool, the pleasant rippling of the brook fell soothingly on the ear, the seat in the summer-house received a sitter with the softly-yielding submission of elastic wires. Susan had just finished her early dinner: in mind and body alike, this good girl was entirely and deservedly at her ease. By finely succeeding degrees, her eyelids began to show a tendency downward; her truant needle-work escaped from her fingers, and lay lazily on her lap. She snatched it up with a start, and sewed with severe resolution until her thread was exhausted. The reel was ready at her side; she took it up for a fresh supply, and innocently rested her head against the leafy and flowery wall of the arbor. Was it thought that gradually closed her eyes again? or was it sleep? In either case, Susan was lost to all se nse of passing events; and Susan’s breathing became musically regular, emulous of the musical regularity of the brook.

As a lesson in patience, the art of angling pursued in a shallow brook has its moral uses. Kitty fished, and waited, and renewed the bait and tried again, with a command of temper which would have been a novelty in Susan’s experience, if Susan had been awake. But the end which comes to all things came also to Kitty’s patience. Leaving her rod on the bank, she let the line and hook take care of themselves, and wandered away in search of some new amusement.

Lingering here and there to gather flowers from the beds as she passed them, Kitty was stopped by a shrubbery, with a rustic seat placed near it, which marked the limits of the garden on that side. The path that she had been following led her further and further away from the brook, but still left it well in view. She could see, on her right hand, the clumsy old wooden bridge which crossed the stream, and served as a means of communication for the servants and the tradespeople, between the cottage and the village on the lower ground a mile away.

The child felt hot and tired. She rested herself on the bench, and, spreading the flowers by her side, began to arrange them in the form of a nosegay. Still true to her love for Sydney, she had planned to present the nosegay to her mother, offering the gift as an excuse for returning to the forbidden subject of her governess, and for asking when they might hope to see each other again.

Choosing flowers and then rejecting them, trying other colors and wondering whether she had accomplished a change for the better, Kitty was startled by the sound of a voice calling to her from the direction of the brook.

She looked round, and saw a gentleman crossing the bridge. He asked the way to Brightwater Cottage.

There was something in his voice that attracted her–how or why, at her age, she never thought of inquiring. Eager and excited, she ran across the lawn which lay between her and the brook, before she answered the gentleman’s question.

As they approached each other, his eyes sparkled, his face flushed; he cried out joyfully, “Here she is!”–and then changed again in an instant. A horrid pallor overspread his face as the child stood looking at him with innocent curiosity. He startled Kitty, not because he seemed to be shocked and distressed, she hardly noticed that; but because he was so like–although he was thinner and paler and older–oh, so like her lost father!

“This is the cottage, sir,” she said faintly.

His sorrowful eyes rested kindly on her. And yet, it seemed as if she had in some way disappointed him. The child ventured to say: “Do you know me, sir?”

He answered in the saddest voice that Kitty had ever heard: “My little girl, what makes you think I know you?”

She was at a loss how to reply, fearing to distress him. She could only say: “You are so like my poor papa.”

He shook and shuddered, as if she had said something to frighten him. He took her hand. On that hot day, his fingers felt as cold as if it had been winter time. He led her back to the seat that she had left. “I’m tired, my dear,” he said. “Shall we sit down?” It was surely true that he was tired. He seemed hardly able to lift one foot after the other; Kitty pitied him. “I think you must be ill;” she said, as they took their places, side by side, on the bench.

“No; not ill. Only weary, and perhaps a little afraid of frightening you.” He kept her hand in his hand, and patted it from time to time. “My dear, why did you say ‘_poor_ papa,’ when you spoke of your father just now?”

“My father is dead, sir.”

He turned his face away from her, and pressed both hands on his breast, as if he had felt some dreadful pain there, and was trying to hide it. But he mastered the pain; and he said a strange thing to her–very gently, but still it was strange. He wished to know who had told her that her father was dead.

“Grandmamma told me.”

“Do you remember what grandmamma said?”

“Yes–she told me papa was drowned at sea.”

He said something to himself, and said it twice over. “Not her mother! Thank God, not her mother!” What did he mean?

Kitty looked and looked at him, and wondered and wondered. He put his arm round her. “Come near to me,” he said. “Don’t be afraid of me, my dear.” She moved nearer and showed him that she was not afraid. The poor man seemed hardly to understand her. His eyes grew dim; he sighed like a person in distress; he said: “Your father would have kissed you, little one, if he had been alive. You say I am like your father. May I kiss you?”

She put her hands on his shoulder and lifted her face to him. In the instant when he kissed her, the child knew him. Her heart beat suddenly with an overpowering delight; she started back from his embrace. “That’s how papa used to kiss me!” she cried. “Oh! you _are_ papa! Not drowned! not drowned!” She flung her arms round his neck, and held him as if she would never let him go again. “Dear papa! Poor lost papa!” His tears fell on her face; he sobbed over her. “My sweet darling! my own little Kitty!”

The hysterical passion that had overcome her father filled her with piteous surprise. How strange, how dreadful that he should cry–that he should be so sorry when she was so glad! She took her little handkerchief out of the pocket of her pinafore, and dried his eyes. “Are you thinking of the cruel sea, papa? No! the good sea, the kind, bright, beautiful sea that has given you back to me, and to mamma–!”

They had forgotten her mother!–and Kitty only discovered it now. She caught at one of her father’s hands hanging helpless at his side, and pulled at it as if her little strength could force him to his feet. “Come,” she cried, “and make mamma as happy as I am!”

He hesitated. She sprang on his knee; she pressed her cheek against his cheek with the caressing tenderness, familiar to him in the first happy days when she was an infant. “Oh, papa, are you going to be unkind to me for the first time in your life?”

His momentary resistance was at an end. He was as weak in her hands now as if he had been the child and she had been the man.

Laughing and singing and dancing round him, Kitty led the way to the window of the room that opened on the garden. Some one had closed it on the inner side. She tapped impatiently at the glass. Her mother heard the tapping; her mother came to the window; her mother ran out to meet them. Since the miserable time when they left Mount Morven, since the long unnatural separation of the parents and the child, those three were together once more!

AFTER THE STORY

1.–The Lawyer’s Apology.

That a woman of my wife’s mature years should be jealous of one of the most exemplary husbands that the records of matrimony can produce is, to say the least of it, a discouraging circumstance. A man forgets that virtue is its own reward, and asks, What is the use of conjugal fidelity?

However, the motto of married life is (or ought to be): Peace at any price. I have been this day relieved from the condition of secrecy that has been imposed on me. You insisted on an explanation some time since. Here it is at last.

For the ten-thousandth time, my dear, in our joint lives, you are again right. That letter, marked private, which I received at the domestic tea-table, was what you positively declared it to be, a letter from a lady–a charming lady, plunged in the deepest