CHAPTER XXXII.
MR. JESSOP’S SUGGESTION.
Laurence Wynne had taken but one person into his confidence, and that was Mr. Jessop. As he sat smoking a post-midnight cigar over the fire in his friend’s chambers, he told him that Mrs. Wynne no longer existed. She preferred to stick to her name of West, and wished to keep her marriage a secret always from—not alone her father, but the whole world.
This much he had divulged. He felt that he must speak to some one. His heart was so sore that he could not maintain total silence, and who so fitting a confidant as his old friend Dick Jessop? He was chivalrous to Madeline in spite of all that had come and gone, and veiled her defects as skilfully as he could, not speaking out of the full bitterness of his soul. But Mr. Jessop’s active imagination filled in all the delicately traced outline—perhaps in rather too black a shading, if the truth were known!
However, he kept his surmises discreetly to himself, and puffed and pondered for a long time in silence. At last he spoke.
“I would let her alone, and not bother my head about her, Laurence! She is bound to come back.”
“I don’t think so,” responded the other, curtly.
“Yes; she will return on account of the child.”
“And what would such a coming-back be worth to me? It will not be for my sake,” said Wynne, holding his feelings under strong restraint.
“I know of something that would bring her, like a shot out of a seventy-four pounder,” observed Mr. Jessop after another pause, surveying the coals meditatively as he spoke.
“What?”