Wife in Name Only

by Charlotte M. Brame

Long and anxiously did Lord Arleigh muse over his wife's letter. What was he to do? If her mother was like the generality of her class, then he was quite sure that the secret he had kept would be a secret no longer--there was no doubt of that. She would naturally talk, and the servants would prove the truth of the story, and there would be a terrible exposé. Yet, lonely and sorrowful as Madaline declared herself to be, how could he refuse her? It was an anxious question for him, and one that caused him much serious thought. Had he known how ill she was he would not have hesitated a moment.

He wrote to Madaline--how the letter was received and cherished no one but herself knew--and told her that he would be in England in a day or two, and would then give her a decided answer. The letter was kind and affectionate; it came to her hungry heart like dew to a thirsty flower.

A sudden idea occurred to Lord Arleigh. He would go to England and find out all about the unfortunate man Dornham. Justice had many victims; it was within the bounds of possibility that the man might have been innocent--might have been unjustly accused. If such--and oh, how he hoped it might be!--should prove to be the case, then Lord Arleigh felt that he could take his wife home. It was the real degradation of the crime that he dreaded so utterly--dreaded more than all that could ever be said about it. He thought to himself more than once that, if by any unexpected means he discovered that Henry Dornham was innocent of the crime attributed to him, he would in that same hour ask Madaline to forgive him, and to be the mistress of his house. That was the only real solution of the difficulty that ever occurred to him. If the man were but innocent he--Lord Arleigh--would never heed the poverty, the obscurity the humble name--all that was nothing. By comparison it seemed so little that he could have smiled at it. People might say it was a low marriage, but he had his own idea of what was low. If only the man could be proved innocent of crime, then he might go to his sweet, innocent wife, and clasping her in his arms, take her to his heart.

The idea seemed to haunt him--it seemed to have a fatal attraction for him. He resolved to go to London at once and see if anything could be done in the matter. How he prayed and longed and hoped! He passed through well-nigh every stage of feeling--from the bright rapture of hope to the lowest depths of despair. He went first to Scotland Yard, and had a long interview with the detective who had given evidence against Henry Dornham. The detective's idea was that he was emphatically "a bad lot."

He smiled benignly when Lord Arleigh suggested that possibly the man was innocent, remarking that it was very kind of the gentleman to think so; for his own part he did not see a shadow of a chance of it.

"He was caught, you see, with her grace's jewels in his pocket, and gold and silver plate ready packed by his side--that did not look much like innocence."

"No, certainly not," Lord Arleigh admitted; "but then there have been cases in which circumstances looked even worse against an innocent man."

"Yes"--the detective admitted it, seeing that for some reason or other his lordship had a great desire to make the man out innocent.

"He will have a task," the detective told himself, grimly.

To the inquiry as to whether the man had been sent out of England the answer was "No; he is at Chatham."