‘I did,’ she answered, but her voice trembled and her lips were very white. She seemed to know by instinct what was coming.
‘And you went to find them because they are your own?’ She made no answer. ‘Mrs Benson, I know your secret, but I will respect it on one condition—that you leave the Hall as soon as possible. You must be aware that this is no place for you.’
‘I never wished to come,’ she answered, weeping.
‘I can believe it, but for the sake of your friend, of your husband, of yourself, quit it as soon as possible. Here are your letters—you had better burn them. I only wished to ascertain that they were yours.’
‘General Wilmer—’ she commenced gaspingly, and then she turned away and could say no more.
‘Do you wish to speak to me?’ I asked her gently.
‘No—nothing; it is useless,’ she answered with a tearless, despairing grief which was far more shocking to behold than either Justina’s or Lady Amabel’s. ‘He is gone, and there is nothing left; but thank you for your forbearance—and good-bye.’
So we parted, and to this day, excepting that she is released from all that could annoy or worry her, I have learned nothing more. How long they loved, how much or in what degree of guilt or innocence, I neither know nor have cared to guess at; it is sufficient for me that it was so, and that while Justina was accusing the beautiful Lady Amabel Scott of attempting to win her husband’s heart from her, it had been given away long before to the woman whom she termed her dearest friend—to the woman who had apparently no beauty, or wit, or accomplishments with which to steal away a man’s love from its rightful owner, but who nevertheless was his ‘loving and faithful Pet,’ and the last thought upon his dying lips.
Professor and Mrs Benson never returned to Durham Hall. It was not long afterwards that I heard from my niece that his wife’s failing health had compelled the professor to go abroad; and to-day she writes me news from Nice that Mrs Benson is dead. Poor Pet! I wonder if those scared brown eyes have lost their frightened look in heaven?