"There is no mistake; Mrs. Streightley has run away from her husband, leaving a letter for him, like the young ladies in the plays, who elope with a lover when 'Gardy' wants to marry them; only in this case there is no lover, I believe, or he is so very well hidden that nobody knows who he is."
Still Gordon looked at her, but now there was relief in his face. "Thank God there is no infamy in this," he said; "though I deserve to be shot for having believed for a moment there could be infamy in any act of Katharine Guyon's."
"Katharine Streightley's, you mean," said Hester with a sneer; "it strikes me there is some little infamy in her conduct as it is, though there may be no lover in the case."
"No," said Gordon Frere, in a tone of manly decision, "there is no such thing. Misery and misunderstanding, possibly mischief, there may, there must be, but no infamy, no disgrace. I will never hear it said or hinted. This will be set right, I am convinced."
"You are as sanguine as you are chivalrous, Gordon," said Hester; "but there is a little difficulty in setting such matters right, either in the private or the public sense. Mr. Streightley is very generous, we all know, and he gave his wife the love she did not marry him for, as well as the money she did; but he may have his wrongs as well as his faults, and----"
"Why are you so hard and bitter, Hester?" said Gordon, in a quick, unsteady voice. "How have these people offended you? They have always been your friends, have they not? I thought you had known them intimately for years, and always received kindness from them--I am sure you have told me so--and now you speak of their trouble in this sneering way. When you told me of poor old Guyon's death, I was shocked at your want of feeling; and now, God forgive me, but I am not able to resist the suspicion there is something horribly like gladness in your heart. How can this be? What is it all? What has Robert Streightley, what has Katharine done, that you should regard their misery as you do?" He took her hand gently; he looked at her with pity in his clear blue eyes. She saw the "pity," and it maddened her; she did not see that he was thinking of her as much as of that other whom she hated. What! he had reproved her, and on Katharine's account; the first cloud that had obscured the glorious light of her wedded happiness, the first ripple on the ocean of her unimaginable bliss, had come through her! In an instant, in one pang of exceeding agony, her fancy transported her to the gay garden where she had first seen this man, who was now hers; this man whom she loved with all the intensity of a nature whose power and passion she herself was only beginning to understand. In one of those terrible spasms of feeling, which, when we think of them afterwards, make us understand the mystery of eternity, she lived through one memorable day again. She saw the sunshine and the flowers; she felt the perfumed air; she heard the strains of music; she saw the flitting crowd, the gay groups, the fluttering dresses, the rich colours, the young faces; she heard the sounds of talking and laughter, and the soft rustling and flapping of the flower-tents; she saw Katharine and her party, Mr. Guyon and Streightley, and Yeldham, and she saw Gordon Frere; he was walking beside Katharine, and looking at her as lovers look: had he ever so looked at her, his wife,--she who loved him with a love in which she now knew there were untold possibilities of suffering, she who lived only to love him? In the instant during which this vision filled her brain, and wrung her heart, Hester Frere lived through hours of anguish; and yet there was not a perceptible pause between her husband's question and her reply. She spoke it with her hand in his, with her eyes on his, with her face growing paler and harder with every word:
"You do well to ask me such questions," she said; "you do well to suspect me of such feelings. This is as it should be; this is what I should have expected. Perhaps you can answer for Mrs. Streightley's purpose in this flight; perhaps you know why she found her home intolerable, and the bondage into which she sold herself for money unendurable. You answer glibly for her, there is no infamy in her flight--indeed, are you sure there was no infamy in her marriage? Are you sure this is the first time she has deceived Robert Streightley?" She loosed her hand from his hold, and sat down, panting for breath. Gordon still stood, and looked at her; but his face had darkened, and an angry look had come into his eyes. He spoke very slowly, and cold fear came upon Hester, as he said,
"Explain yourself, if you please. Such unwomanly, such base insinuations shall have no reply from me. Say what you think,--ask what you wish to know, plainly; but first, let me say this--that I have been utterly mistaken in you; that I believed you a woman incapable of a meanness, and honoured you as such----"
"Yes," said Hester, in a voice so low that it was hardly audible, "honoured me!--I believe you; but you loved her. Yes; don't start and stammer, and seek to deny it," for Gordon, in sheer astonishment, had started, and tried to speak. "It is useless; I know all. I know how she played with you, and jilted you, and threw you over for the rich man, whom she despised. Do you think because I was only a music-teacher, and not 'in society,' I never heard what society talked about, and had no eyes to see? I tell you, I read your secret and hers the first time I ever saw your face; and I read it again, when I, the new heiress, and the 'great prize of the season,' went up the staircase at Mrs. Pendarvis's ball with you, and she came down with the millionnaire for whom she had discarded you. I don't know why this woman has left her husband, but I can guess; perhaps you do know. I don't care."
"Hush, Hester!" said Frere, and his tone forced her into silence. "Beware lest you reveal to me more of your nature than I can endure. Never venture to speak such words to me again. I am ignorant of Katharine's movements, as you know as well as I do; but I would stake my life on her honour, and I trust her motives, as I trust her actions. If there be, as there must be, a serious misunderstanding between her and Streightley, I pity him with all my heart. I know little of him; but as I have come to know that little, I have learned to respect and esteem him. I will help him to the utmost of my power."