CHAPTER III.
Clare Thorne's life had been so dull, that one can scarcely wonder if she found the advent of Wilmot at the cantonment, and his visits, most welcome, though they filled her with a vague alarm—an undefined fear of violating trust and propriety. We have said that the Thornes had few visitors; this arose from the distaste the chaplain had of society and the general gravity of his demeanour; but Fred Wilmot cared little for all that; it was not him he came to see.
No thought of evil was in the innocent heart of Clare; nor was there in the heart of Wilmot, to do him justice, though he abandoned himself to the perilous charm of seeking the society of the girl who once loved him so well—from whom he had been separated, and who felt with him in common "that death in life, the days that are no more." A little time the regiment would be moving further up country, and all would then be at an end. Meanwhile both were playing with edged tools!
Clare and her husband could not understand each other. His nature, which with all his apparent gloom was a passionate one, had no outlet save his great love for her, and his greater for religion. For him the dull routine of his daily life was enough; but Clare longed, like the girl she was, for amusement, excitement, display, society, and yet in gay British India she was condemned by this good and amiable, but fervid ascetic, to lead a life which, to one of her temperament, was one of unspeakable martyrdom.
She might, perhaps, under better auspices, have forgotten her first love in time, and learned to like, as much as she respected, her husband, had he only made some allowance for her weakness and foibles, and not judged her so hardly and set before her a standard of excellence which she was unable to attain.
But the crisis of her life was coming fast to Clare Thorne.
Her husband began to dislike the frequent visits and the somewhat brotherly familiarity of Wilmot with his wife; there was something in it undefinable. It was the reverse of flirtation, for his demeanour was grave, respectful and sympathetic, and in these elements the danger seemed to lie. Clare's bearing and tone were irreproachable; yet a suspicion, at which he blushed, was roused in the honest heart of Cecil Thorne.
"If it should be!" he muttered, with his firm white teeth clenched. Then he would watch and dissemble; but even that seemed a stain on his own rectitude. Thus one day he said, abruptly:
"Clare, that officer—Mr. Wilmot, has been here again. I see his music strewed all over the piano."
"Well, Cecil?"
"I forbid his visits—that is all!"
"Forbid his visits!" repeated Clare, startled, crushed, and blushing crimson; "then you must tell him so yourself."
"Why, madam?"
"He is an old friend of my family, and—and——"
"You, and he too, never said a word of this before!"
"I thought you knew it," faltered Clare, who found that she had made a sad mistake.
"Old friend—he is about five-and-twenty only. What brought him here to-day?"
"To give us these tickets for the garrison ball."
"Ball—you know I never go to balls."
"But may I?"
"No—you may not!"
Poor Clare repined bitterly and wept profusely, but not for the first time in her life, and her husband, who knew that all Mirzapatam was on tip-toe about the forbidden ball, eyed her with a lowering expression. But he knew that he must exert his authority, or scandals might ensue, and he felt that Wilmot must cross his threshold no more. Indeed, the ball-tickets were returned to him, and when next he visited the abode of Mr. Thorne, that gentleman, who never did things by halves, and who deemed he had a duty to perform to religion, to himself, and society, gave the young officer a pretty distinct hint that his visits could be dispensed with, and Fred retired, his heart swollen with rage, mortification, and sorrow.
Shame and anger mingled with the sorrow of Clare. How tiresome of him to go on this way to her in their present abode, of all places in the world! Scandal—the thing he dreaded—would be sure to come of it. A great gloom now fell upon Clare, and the ball—girl-like—the forbidden ball rankled in her heart; Thorne supposed this gloom was caused by the banishment of Wilmot only; but that had merely something to do with it.
Was she, that he loved and trusted, wronging him cruelly in her heart? Was he nursing a traitress in his bosom? Sooth to say, the hitherto placid and plodding Cecil Thorne began to think, and sometimes say, all manner of desperate things to his scared and shrinking little wife, whose changed manner he attributed to Wilmot's influence, and he cursed the hour that ever the new regiment marched into Mirzapatam.
Loving his wife as he did, he would rather have seen her lying in her grave and himself reading the burial service over her, than living as a disgraced woman. Then, if there was great sorrow, there would be no shame, and she would be gone where never more dishonour could menace, or shame assail her.
"Clare, child," said he, "my little wife is my all to me. The soul that sinneth shall pay the wages of sin."
"But I have not sinned!" she exclaimed, passionately.
"As yet," said he, pointedly and coldly; "thank Heaven, my eyes were opened in time! Think of what would be my misery and our conjoint dishonour—I, a priest of the Church! Think of how our once happy home might have been desecrated and the bitterness of a love that is slighted!"
"You make too much or too little of all this!"
"I do not!"
"Oh, Cecil—Cecil—my dear husband—I have no forgiveness to ask of you; I only seek your pity."
"I do pity you," he replied, grimly, and thought the while,
"She can speak to me thus—with that fellow's kisses fresh upon her lips!" For he had undefined suspicions that Wilmot saw her yet, from time to time.
"How tiresome—how absurd is this jealousy!" thought Clare; yet her own conscience told her it was neither absurd nor mistaken now; and all this passed on the night of the forbidden ball!