It is needless to say that Sir Reginald lost no time in tearing open the letter, which ran as follows:
“My dear Husband,
“You will be surprised to get a letter from me, considering my very recent heartless wicked treatment of you, and more surprised still to hear that I am writing to entreat your forgiveness. Ever since you left I have been so very, very miserable, and as each day has passed I have been more firmly convinced of your innocence, and that I have been the most unjust and ungenerous of wives. You will, I know, make allowance for my youth and a naturally jealous hot temper. These are but feeble excuses; no one but you, who have always been so good to me, would entertain them for an instant. I sometimes think I must have been mad; any way, whatever you may do I shall never forgive myself. But you will pardon me, I know; not only because of your promise, but because—how can I tell you? I had a bad fainting fit the other day, and Morris was frightened and sent for the doctor; he says that before summer, all being well, there will be a little inmate in the nursery here. I have not told this great secret to anyone, neither must you. Long before summer your letter will have come, won’t it? Once this has fairly started, I shall count the very days till the answer comes back. If none comes I will know that you cannot forgive me, and indeed I don’t deserve that you should. But you will write to me a kind letter too, my darling Regy. Think how very lonely I am, I have no one but you in all the world. The post is just going out, so I must conclude. I direct this by the address you left with Helen, so it will be sure to reach you safely. Mind you write by return mail to
“Your loving and penitent wife,
“Alice Fairfax.”
When he had read this to the end he laid it down, and began to pace about the room in great agitation.
“What a brute I must seem to her! What must she have thought of me all these years? Why, no later than yesterday”—he paused in his walk, overwhelmed with the recollection—“I rejected her overtures for peace. I was savagely rude to her. My poor little Alice, you had indeed said quite enough, more than enough,” he muttered, resuming his walk. “What must she think of me? How can she have borne with me all this time? I refused, yes, point-blank, to kiss her, idiot that I was. I might have guessed at something of this kind, only that my devilish pride had strangled my common sense; and all this frightful misunderstanding was owing to this wretched bit of paper, this letter, that I would have given five years of my life for, and she, poor girl, has been breaking her heart about, and all the time it has been lying inside the skirt of that woman’s dress. After all,” he continued, taking it up, “it is a very dear and precious letter; I would not part with it, late as it comes, for a field-marshal’s bâton.” He read it twice over again, lingering on almost every word, then folded it up very carefully and put it in his waistcoat-pocket as he walked to the window. “No wonder,” said he, “she gave me a cool reception; I wonder what sort of one she would give me now if I could catch her alone? She ought to hate me pretty well by this time, it is not my fault if she does not. But she likes me a little bit still. She must, or she never could have stood the way I have treated her. If she only cares for me just one quarter as much as I care for her we shall do very well,” he thought to himself joyfully, as he stepped out of the window and joined the party who were sitting in the pleasure-ground, basking in the moonlight, and inhaling the soft bracing air, heavy with the perfume of syringa, roses, and new-mown hay.
Mr. and Mrs. Mayhew, Miss Saville, and Mary were reposing in various garden-chairs.
“Where is Alice?” asked her husband abruptly.
“Oh, she and Geoffrey have gone to gather pears for the public weal.”
“What, at this hour!” he exclaimed, standing at the top of the steps, gazing after two figures who were rapidly disappearing in the direction of the garden. “Small chance of a tête-à-tête with Alice to-night,” he said to himself as he pulled his moustache thoughtfully.