Clemence read on, every sentence falling like a drop of glowing metal on her heart; she saw the name most dear to her coupled with duplicity, craft, dishonour!
“We hear on undoubted authority,” said the Times, “that Mr. Effingham has settled a large fortune upon his wife, with whom the bankrupt doubtless looks forward to enjoying in luxurious retirement the spoils of the widow and the orphan. These evasions of law and equity have been of late of such frequent occurrence, that we have learned complacently to behold the giant offender rolling in his carriage, while the meaner felon is consigned to a jail.”
The paper dropped from the hand of the miserable wife. Vincent sprang to her side. “It is not true!” he exclaimed passionately; “it is all nonsense and lies!—it is!—oh, say that it is!”
“Leave me, Vincent! leave me!” gasped Clemence; with an imploring gesture she motioned to the door, and, as soon as her command had been obeyed, threw herself down upon the floor and writhed, as if in convulsions of bodily pain! What physical torture could have equalled the agony of that hour! The anguish caused to a loving and conscientious spirit by the errors of the being most beloved, resembles in nature, and is scarcely exceeded in intensity by that of remorse! To Clemence, her husband’s disgrace was her disgrace; his transgressions seemed even as her own. So closely was she joined to him in heart, that the consciousness of personal blamelessness brought her no comfort—the shadow which had fallen on him enveloped her also in its blackness!
“What am I called upon to endure!” was a thought ere long superseded by another: “What am I called upon to do?” A gulf of misery was yawning before the bankrupt’s wife—could no personal sacrifice close it? Clemence started to her feet, took the writing materials which lay on the table, and hastily penned to Mr. Mark a scarcely legible note, praying him to come to her as soon as was possible, as she needed his assistance and advice. This done, and the letter despatched, Clemence could breathe a little more freely. She declined seeing any one until after his arrival, and as that was delayed for several hours, the unhappy wife had time to become more calm, and to revolve in her mind what course of duty lay before her. Yet the sound of the long waited-for knock at the door which announced the man of business, was to her much as that of the hammer-stroke on a scaffold might be to one doomed to suffer thereon.
Mr. Mark entered with apologies for delay, of which Clemence understood not one word. With tremulous hand she pointed to the Times, and could scarcely articulate, “You have seen it?”
Mr. Mark gravely inclined his head.
“And is there any—” Clemence stopped short—she could not endure to put the question in such a form. “Is it not all cruel calumny?” she faltered.
Mr. Mark hesitated. “The language is harsh and strong,” was his guarded reply: it was too well comprehended by the miserable Clemence.
“When that—that money was settled,” she stammered forth, without daring to look at her listener, “the house was safe, secure—there was no prospect of the ruin that followed?”