It was a wearisome and distressing business, and it is needless to say that I took no pleasure in it. I was animated by no sense of triumph, and was only upheld by my stern determination not to be turned from my purpose. Finally, Maxwell adopted other tactics. "The income you offer my poor sister," he wrote, "is utterly inadequate for her support. Through your misconduct she is now in such a deplorable state of health that the utmost care is needed. Make it five hundred pounds a year, and a public exposure of your brutality will be avoided. Within a few days of your marriage Barbara discovered that you had a mistress, and as a man of the world I know that there has been all through another woman in the case. It will be worth your while to make it five hundred pounds. I am not at the end of my resources, and if you refuse to act in a sensible way I will make it warm for you. You shall not have a moment's peace."
Finally, after the lapse of several weeks, the distressing affair was brought to a conclusion. The house was sold, and Barbara removed from it, taking with her the whole of the furniture, to which, for the sake of peace, I offered no objection. The worry and anxiety had affected my health. Living alone, with no friend to cheer me, I should have felt myself a complete outcast from the world had in not been for the regular correspondence I kept up with Ellen. Her letters were my only comfort, and I may truly say that they preserved the balance of my mind. Confident as I was in the justice of my cause it may have been that, but for the consolation I drew from them, I should have again given way to despair. The natural reserve which distinguished her letters when she first began to write to me had melted away, and she wrote now as to a friend of long standing.
It was at this period that I received a letter from her mother. She said that her daughter did not know she was communicating with me, and that her letter was posted by a servant in the farmhouse. There was something on her mind which she wished to impart to me, and she had also an earnest desire to see the friend to whom they were so deeply indebted. If my engagements in London would permit of it she would esteem it an honor to shake hands with their dearest friend and confide to him a secret which was oppressing her.
The request came opportunely. The good doctor had spoken of my changed appearance, and had advised me to go into the country for a rest.
"Would Swanage suit me?" I asked.
"I prescribe Swanage," he replied, smiling.
He knew me only as John Fletcher, and had no suspicion that I was a married man.
[CHAPTER XX.]
I now approach a period in my life which, in comparison with what I have already related, shines like a garden in an arid desert—a fair garden blooming with the flowers of peace and happiness. It is not easy to say when I began to love Ellen, and she has confessed that she does not know when she began to love me. Chance, or fate, led us to each other, and has led us to the end, which is very near. Much of the past I would undo were it in my power, but, although a miracle would be needed to free me from the peril in which I stand, I would not undo that part of it which Ellen and I shared together despite the fact that it may be said to have created the mystery in which I am entangled. I have read somewhere how a withered rose may be restored to freshness and sweetness. So was it with my life in the hour that Ellen and I first met.