Colin found Violet’s eyes fixed on him; her face, deadly pale, wore the stillness of stone.
“With regard to my wife’s allegation about the register,” he said. “I deny that I ever told her any such story. I have this to add: when my father and I were in Naples last summer, I made, at his request, a copy of the record of his marriage from the consular register. He thought, I fancy, that in the event of his death, a certified copy of it, here in England, might be convenient for the purpose of proving the marriage. I made that copy myself, and Mr. Cecil, our Consul in Naples, certified it to be correct. I gave it my lawyer a few days ago, when he was down here, and it is, of course, open to your inspection.”
Colin paused and let his eyes rest wistfully on Violet.
“My wife, of course, Mr. Markham,” he said, “is under a delusion. But she has made the allegation, and in justice to me, I think you will agree that it must be investigated. She supposes—don’t you, darling?—that there is an erasure in the register at the Consulate showing that it has been tampered with, and that erasure points to an attempt on some one’s part, presumably my father’s or my own, to legitimatise his children. In answer to that I am content for the present to say that when I made the copy I saw no such erasure, nor did Mr. Cecil who certified the correctness of it. Mr. Cecil, to whom I will give you an introduction, no doubt will remember the incident. I am glad I have got that copy, for if the register proves to have been tampered with, it may be valuable. My belief is that no such erasure exists. May I suggest, Mr. Markham, that you or some trustworthy person should start for Naples at once? You will take the affidavits—is it not—of my uncle with regard to the letters, and of Mr. Cecil with regard to the genuineness of the copy of my father’s marriage. You will also inspect the register. The matter is of the utmost and immediate importance.”
He turned to Violet. “Vi, darling,” he said, “let us agree not to speak of this again until Mr. Markham has obtained full information about it all. Now, perhaps, you would like to consult him in private. I will leave you.”
Mr. Markham shared Colin’s view as to the urgency and importance of setting this matter at rest, and left for Naples that evening with due introductions to Salvatore and the Consul. Colin had a word with him before he left, and with tenderness and infinite delicacy, spoke of Violet’s condition. Women had these strange delusions, he believed, at such times, and the best way of settling them was to prove that they had no foundation. Mr. Markham, he was afraid, would find that he had made a fruitless journey, as far as the ostensible reason for it went, but he had seen for himself how strongly the delusion had taken hold on his wife, and in that regard he hoped for the best results. In any case the thing must be settled....
Never had the sparkle and sunlight of Colin’s nature been so gay as during these two days when they waited for the news that Mr. Markham would send from Naples. It had been agreed that the issues of his errand should not be spoken of until they declared themselves, and here, to all appearance, was a young couple, adorably adorned with all the gifts of Nature and inheritance, with the expectation of the splendour of half a century’s unclouded days spread in front of them. They had lately passed through the dark valley of intimate bereavement, but swiftly they were emerging into the unshadowed light, where, in a few months now, the glory of motherhood, the pride of fatherhood, awaited them. In two days from now, as both knew, a disclosure would reach them which must be, one way or the other, of tremendous import, but for the present, pending that revelation, presage and conjecture, memory even of that interview with Mr. Markham, which had sent him across the breadth of Europe, were banished; they were as children in the last hour of holidays, as lovers between whom must soon a sword be unsheathed.
They wandered in the woods where in the hot, early spring the daffodils were punctual, and, “coming before the swallow dares,” took the winds of March with beauty, and Colin picked her the pale cuckoo-pint which, intoxicated with nonsense, he told her comes before the cuckoo dares.... They spoke of the friendship of their childhood which had so swiftly blossomed into love, and of the blossom of their love that was budding now.
All day the enchantment of their home and their companionship waved its wand over them, and at night, tired with play, they slept the light sleep of lovers. Certainly, for one or other of them, there must soon come a savage awakening, or, more justly, the strangle-hold of nightmare, but there were a few hours yet before the dreams of spring-time and youth were murdered.
The third day after Mr. Markham’s departure for Naples was Colin’s birthday, when he would come of age, and Violet, waking early that morning, while it was still dark, found herself prey to some crushing load and presage of disaster, most unpropitious, most unbirthday-like. For the last two days, these days of waiting for news, they had made for themselves a little artificial oasis of sunshine and laughter; now some secret instinct told her that she could linger there no more. To-day, she felt sure, would come some decisive disclosure, and she dreaded it with a horror too deep for the plummet of imagination. In that dark hour before dawn, when the vital forces are at their lowest, she lay hopeless and helpless.