“Poor thing!” breathed Jennie, with deep pity; “poor, poor thing! She, so proud, so stately, so beautiful, to be cast down to the dust! Oh, no! Heaven pardon me, but I must spare him for her sake! I will do nothing until I see my father, and then I must tell him all, and be guided by his counsels.”
So then Jennie stooped and kissed her baby and felt at peace with all the world.
Lamia Leegh was not one to hide her “light under a bushel.”
Before many hours had passed every one had heard the pathetic story of the English curate’s young daughter, who had been married, deserted and months afterward half murdered by her husband; how she had been taken to the Samaritan Hospital, where she became a mother; how certain charitable ladies had become so interested in her case that they had made up a fund to give her and her child an outfit and send them home to her father, and how she was on this very ship.
Without claiming all the credit in so many words, Lamia Leegh had left the impression on the minds of her hearers that she herself had been the principal, if not the only, benefactress of Jennie Montgomery, and she won applause for her benevolence.
When Kightly Montgomery left his wife seated on the deck it was with a feeling of relief to get out of her presence. He hurried to his stateroom, looked around, and felt more relief to find that his deceived bride was absent.
He kept a private stock of strong old brandy in a case. He opened a bottle, poured out half a goblet full, and drank it at a draught.
Then he felt better still.
“She will keep her word,” he said to himself. “If she had intended to give me away, she would have done so before this. Any man would have denounced another under such circumstances. But these women are inexplicable. I wonder if her child was born alive? I wonder if it is living, and if she has it with her, or if she has placed it in some asylum? Impossible to say. She volunteers no information on the subject, and I certainly cannot question her about it. She wishes me to avoid her. I am quite willing to oblige her in that particular. I very much do not wish to see her again. No, nor her father! I must not meet the dominie, under present complications. It would be awkward. I shall shirk that rencontre by getting off the steamer at Queenstown and taking the mail route to London via Kingstown and Holyhead. That will do!”
He filled and drank another half goblet of brandy, and then sat staring at his boots.