“Shameful news about John Temple!” repeated the squire, pushing back his chair and looking straight at his wife’s pale, determined face.
“At least I call it shameful,” she went on, “to induce a country girl to leave her home—a daughter of one of your own tenants—to deceive you, his best friend. Philip, you remember the girl, May Churchill, who ran away? I suspected at the time that John Temple had something to do with it, and now I know. This girl is living at an address in London, and is called there Mrs. John, and she writes to him here, and if she is not married to him she ought to be—and I do not believe she is.”
“I will never believe this!” said the squire, rising in great emotion, his aged face growing pale. “What! John Temple wrong May Churchill; the little girl I have known since she was a child; the daughter of a man like Churchill, whom I respect, and who has lived on my land since he was a lad, and his father before him! Rachel, what folly is this? Who has been telling you this wicked, this insane story?”
“My own eyes told me first,” answered Mrs. Temple, in a hard, concentrated voice, “and every word that I have told you is true. Do you remember when he used to get large letters which he said were from some late landlady of his, and contained his unpaid bills? I suspected at that time he was not speaking the truth, and a day or two after I learned this was so. He got one of these large letters at breakfast, and he put it in his pocket unread. I said at the time, ‘more bills?’ and he answered, ‘I am afraid so.’ Well, after the breakfast was over, I went upstairs, and passed his sitting-room door, and it was standing ajar. I wanted to speak to him about going to call at Homelands, and I went into the room. He was not there, but an open letter was lying on the table. I went up to the table and read the first lines. It began: ‘My dearest, dearest John.’”
“But what of that?” said Mr. Temple, angrily. “You had no right to read or look at his letters for one thing, and for another, how could you tell by whom this letter was written?”
“I looked at the printed address on the paper, and I remembered it, and just at this moment I saw through the open bedroom door that John Temple was on the balcony of the little ante-room beyond. So I turned and left the sitting-room and he never knew that I had been there. Then I considered what to do, for I was determined to bring this home to him, and I suddenly remembered young Henderson of Stourton Grange—”
“What on earth had he to do with it?” interrupted the squire.
“He had been in love, was in love, like the rest of them, with this girl,” answered Mrs. Temple, scornfully, “and so I used him for my purpose. He had spoken to me once about his suspicions that Miss Churchill had eloped with John Temple, or rather that he had persuaded her to run away from home, so that he might join her afterward. So I wrote to ask Henderson to meet me—”
“You wrote to ask young Henderson to meet you?”