A Terrible Secret Part 61

There was a cry from his aunt. As he spoke he dropped, panting and exhausted with his speed, into a chair and laid his hand upon his breast to still its heavy, suffocating throbs.

"Found!" exclaimed Lady Helena; "where--when--how?"

"Wait, aunt," the voice of Inez said gently; "give him time. Don't you see he can scarcely pant? Not a word yet Victor--let me fetch you a gla.s.s of wine."

She brought it and he drank it. His face was quite ghastly, livid, bluish rings encircling his mouth and eyes. He certainly looked desperately ill, and more fitted for a sick-bed than a breathless night ride from St. James Street to St, John's Wood. He lay back in his chair, closed his eyes, struggled with his panting breath. They sat and waited in silence, far more concerned for him than for the news he bore.

He told them at last, slowly, painfully, of his chance meeting with Lady Portia Hampton, of his enforced visit to the Oxford Street dress-maker--of his glimpse of the tall girl with the dark hair--of his waiting, of his seeing, and recognizing Edith, his following her, and of his sudden giddy faintness that obliged him to give up the chase.

"You'll think me an awful m.u.f.f," he said; "I haven't an idea how I came to be such a mollicoddle, but I give you my word I fainted dead away like a school-girl when I got to my room. I suppose it was partly this confounded palpitation of the heart, and partly the shock of the great surprise and joy. Jamison brought me all right somehow, after awhile, and then I came here. I had to do something, or I believe I should have gone clear out of my senses."

Then there was a pause. The two women looked at each other, then at him, his eager eyes, his excited, wild-looking, haggard face.

"Well," he cried impatiently, "have you nothing to say? Is it nothing to you that after all these months--months--great Heavens! it seems centuries. But I have found her at last--toiling for her living, while we--oh! I can't think of it--I dare not; it drives me mad!"

He sprang up and began pacing to and fro, looking quite as much like a madman as a sane one.

"Be quiet, Victor," his aunt said. "It is madness indeed for you to excite yourself in this way. Of course we rejoice in all that makes you happy. She is found--Heaven be praised for it!--she is alive and well--thank Heaven also for that. And now--what next?"

"What next?" He paused and looked at her in astonishment "You ask what next? What next can there be, except to go the first thing to-morrow morning and take her away."

"Take her away!" Lady Helena repeated, setting her lips; "take her _where_, Victor? To you?"

His ghastly face turned a shade ghastlier. He caught his breath and grasped the back of the chair as though a spasm of unendurable agony had pierced his heart. In an instant his aunt's arms were about him, tears streaming down her cheeks, her imploring eyes lifted to his:

"Forgive me, Victor, forgive me! I ought not to have asked you that.

But I did not mean--I know _that_ can never be, my poor boy. I will do whatever you say. I will go to her, of course--I will fetch her here if she will come."

"If she will come!" he repeated hoa.r.s.ely, disengaging himself from her; "what do you mean by _if_? There can be no 'if' in the matter.

She is my wife--she is Lady Catheron--do you think she is to be left penniless and alone drudging for the bread she eats? I tell you, you _must_ bring her; she _must_ come!"

His pa.s.sionate, suppressed excitement terrified her. In pain and fear and helplessness she looked at her niece. Inez, with that steady self-possession that is born of long and great endurance, came to the rescue at once.

"Sit down, Victor!" her full, firm tones said, "and don't work yourself up to this pitch of nervous excitement. It's folly--useless folly, and its end will be prostration and a sick-bed. About your wife, Aunt Helena will do what she can, but--what can she do? You have no authority over her now; in leaving her you resigned it. It is unutterably painful to speak of this, but under the circ.u.mstances we must. She refused with scorn everything you offered her before; unless these ten past months have greatly altered her, she will refuse again.

She seems to have been a very proud, high-spirited girl, but her hard struggle with the world may have beaten down that--and--"

"Don't!" he cried pa.s.sionately; "I can't bear it. O my G.o.d! to think what I have done--what I have been forced to do! what I have made her suffer--what she must think of me--and that I live to bear it! To think I have endured it all, when a pistol-ball would have ended my torments any day!"

"When you talk such wicked folly as that," said Inez Catheron, her strong, steady eyes fixed upon his face, "I have no more to say. You did your duty once: you acted like a hero, like a martyr--it seems a pity to spoil it all by such cowardly rant as this."

"My duty!" he exclaimed, huskily "Was it my duty? Sometimes I doubt it; sometimes I think if I had never left her, all might have been well. Was it my duty to make my life a h.e.l.l on earth, to tear my heart from my bosom, as I did in the hour I left her, to spoil her life for her, to bring shame, reproach, and poverty upon her? If I had not left her, could the worst that might have happened been any worse than that?"

"Much, worse--infinitely worse. You are the sufferer, believe me, not she. What is all she has undergone in comparison with what _you_ have endured? And one day she will know all, and love and honor you as you deserve."

He hid his face in his hands, and turned away from the light.

"One day," they heard him murmur; "one day--the day of my death. Pray Heaven it may be soon."

"I think," Inez said after a pause, "you had better let _me_ go and speak instead of Aunt Helena. She has undergone so much--she isn't able, believe me, Victor, to undergo more. Let me go to your wife; all Aunt Helena can say, all she can urge, I will. If it be in human power to bring her back, I will bring her. All I dare tell her, I will tell.

But, after all, it is so little, and she is so proud. Don't hope too much."

"It is so little," he murmured again, his face still hidden; "so little, and there is so much to tell. Oh!" he broke forth, with a pa.s.sionate cry, "I can't bear this much longer. If she will come for nothing else, she will come for the truth, and the truth shall be told. What are a thousand promises to the living or the dead to the knowledge that she hates and scorns me!"

They said nothing to him--they knew it was useless--they knew his paroxysm would pa.s.s, as so many others had pa.s.sed, and that by to-morrow he would be the last to wish to tell.

"You will surely not think of returning to St. James Street to-night?"

said Inez by way of diversion. "You will remain here, and at the earliest possible hour to-morrow you will drive me to Oxford Street. I will do all I can--you believe that, my cousin, I know. And if--_if_ I am successful, will"--she paused and looked at him--"will you meet her, Victor?"

"I don't know yet; my head is in a whirl. To-night I feel as though I could do anything, brave anything--to-morrow I suppose I will feel differently. Don't ask me what I will do to-morrow until to-morrow comes. I will remain all night, and I will go to my room at once; I feel dazed and half sick. Good-night."

He left them abruptly. They heard him toil wearily up to his room and lock the door. Long after, the two women sat together talking with pale, apprehensive faces.

"She won't come--I am as sure of it as that I sit here," were Lady Helena's parting words as they separated for the night. "I know her better than he does, and I am not carried away by his wild hopes. She will not come."

Sir Victor descended to breakfast, looking unutterably pallid and haggard in the morning light. Well he might; he had not slept for one moment.

But he was more composed, calm, and quiet, and there was almost as little hope in his heart as in Lady Helena's. Immediately after breakfast, Miss Catheron, closely veiled, entered the cab with him, and was driven to Oxford Street. It was a very silent drive; she was glad when it was over, and he set her down near the shop of Madame Mirebeau.

"I will wait here," he said. "If she will come with you, you will take a cab and drive back to Poplar Lodge. If she does not--" he had to pause a moment--"then return to me, and I will take you home."

She bent her head in a.s.sent, and entered the shop. Her own heart was beating at the thought of the coming interview and its probable ending. She advanced to the counter, and, without raising her veil, inquired if Miss Stuart were come.

The girl looked inquisitively at the hidden face, and answered:

"Yes, Miss Stuart had come."

"I wish to see her particularly, and in private, for a few moments.

Can you manage it for me?"

She slipped a sovereign into the shopwoman's hand. There was a second curious look at the tall, veiled lady, but the sovereign was accepted.

A side door opened, and she was shown into an empty room.

"You can wait here, ma'am," the girl said. "I'll send her to you."

Miss Catheron walked over to the window; that nervous heart beat quicker than ever. When had she been nervous before? The window overlooked busy, bright Oxford Street, and in the distance she saw the waiting cab and her cousin's solitary figure. The sight gave her courage. For his sake, poor fellow, she would do all human power could do.

"You wish to see me, madame?"

A clear, soft voice spoke. The door had quietly opened and a young girl entered.

Inez Catheron turned round, and for the second time in her life looked in the face of her cousin's wife.

Yes, it was his wife. The face she had seen under the trees of Powyss Place she saw again to-day in the London milliner's parlor. The same darkly handsome, quietly resolute young face, the same gravely beautiful eyes, the same slender, graceful figure, the same silky waves of blackish-brown hair. To her eyes there was no change; she had grown neither thinner nor paler; she had lost none of the beauty and grace that had won away Sir Victor Catheron's heart. She was very plainly dressed in dark gray of some cheap material, but fitting perfectly; linen bands at neck and throat, and a knot of cherry ribbon. And the slim finger wore no wedding-ring. She took it all in, in three seconds; then she advanced.

"I wished to see you. We are not likely to be disturbed?"

"We are likely to be disturbed at any moment. It is the room where Madame Mirebeau tries on the dresses of her customers; and my time is very limited."

The dark, grave eyes were fixed upon the close veil expectantly. Inez Catheron threw it back.