Wife in Name Only

by Charlotte M. Brame

It had been a terrible struggle for Margaret to give her up.

"I might as well have let her go back years ago to those to whom she belonged," she said to herself, "as to let her go now."

Still, she stood in great awe of the Duchess of Hazlewood, who seemed to her one of the grandest ladies in all England; and, when the duchess told her it was selfish of her to stand in her daughter's light, Margaret gave way and let her go. Many times, after she had parted with her, she felt inclined to open the oaken box with brass clasps, and see what the papers in it contained, but a nameless fear came over her. She did not dare to do what she had not done earlier.

Madaline had constantly written to her, had told her of her lover, had described Lord Arleigh over and over again to her. On the eve of her wedding-day she had written again; but, after that fatal marriage-day, she had not told her secret. Of what use would it be to make her mother more unhappy than she was--of what avail to tell her that the dark and terrible shadow of her father's crime had fallen over her young life, blighting it also?

Of all her mother's troubles she knew this would be the greatest so she generously refrained from naming it. There was no need to tell her patient, long-suffering, unhappy mother that which must prove like a dagger in her gentle heart. So Margaret Dornham had one gleam of sunshine in her wretched life. She believed that the girl she had loved so dearly was unutterably happy. She had read the descriptions of Lord Arleigh with tears in her eyes.

"That is how girls write of the men they love," she said--"my Madaline loves him."

Madaline had written to her when the ceremony was over. She had no one to make happy with her news but her distant mother. Then some days passed before she heard again--that did not seem strange. There was, of course, the going home, the change of scene, the constant occupation. Madaline would write when she had time. At the end of a week she heard again; and then it struck her that the letter was dull, unlike one written by a happy bride--but of course she must be mistaken--why should not Madaline be happy?

After that the letters came regularly, and Madaline said that the greatest pleasure she had lay in helping her mother. She said that she intended to make her a certain allowance, which she felt quite sure would be continued to her after her death, should that event precede her mother's; so that at last, for the weary-hearted woman, came an interval of something like contentment. Through Madaline's bounty she was able to move from her close lodgings in town to a pretty cottage in the country Then she had a glimpse of content.

After a time her heart yearned to see the daughter of her adoption, the one sunbeam of her life, and she wrote to that effect.

"I will come to you," wrote Madaline, in reply, "if you will promise me faithfully to make no difference between me and the child Madaline who used to come home from school years ago."