“There, Mrs. Crane! since my word is not sufficient to gain your credence, or my desires, ahem! my wishes, if you prefer the expression, to secure your obedience, you force me to submit to you this singular—I may say, this offensive document, which, ahem! in conjunction with other information, has occasioned me much justifiable annoyance, and, I may add, mental anxiety and distress.”
The letter was written in a bold, dashing, though evidently disguised, hand, and ran as follows:—
“Sir,—I have no doubt you consider yourself a clever, cautious man of business, a prudent master of a family, and a kind and judicious husband—if you do, all that I can say is, that ‘I am unable to agree with you.’ A clever, cautious man of business would scarcely leave important money transactions to the management of Horace D’Almayne, a needy and unprincipled adventurer; a prudent master of a house would not encourage such an intimacy; nor would a kind and judicious husband allow a notorious libertine to be constantly in the society of his young and pretty wife. Your infatuation has already produced some of the unpleasant results naturally to be expected from it; you have advanced above £5000 on a bubble company, not one farthing of which you will ever see again, whilst you have incurred liabilities, to learn the extent of which you had better consult your man of business, and I wish you joy of the revelation I expect you will obtain from him. In regard to your young wife, I have no positive information to afford you; but that D’Almayne has designs upon her, I know,—and he is not a man to fail in an adventure of that description, even without taking into consideration the circumstance of a beautiful young woman being married to a man of your years. You may wonder why I trouble myself to write thus to you; so I will tell you: I owe D’Almayne a grudge, and it suits me to take this opportunity of discharging the debt. But though this is my object, all I have told you is only the plain truth; I suspect it comes too late to be of much use to you; but that is your look-out, not mine.”
The letter was without signature.
Kate listened attentively while Mr. Crane read aloud, with much hesitation and stammering, such portions of the alarming epistle as concerned his property and his wife, carefully suppressing every sentence which related to his own weakness and gullibility. When he had concluded, she remarked, “The letter is a singular one, and appears to me to bear a certain impress of truth; if I were you, I would attend to the hints in regard to your pecuniary investments.”
“And as to those which affect my wife, what would you advise in regard to them, madam?” inquired Mr. Crane, screwing up his face into an expression of feeble sarcasm, which gave him very much the appearance of an ancient monkey. Kate paused: here was an opportunity which might never occur again of enlightening her husband as to her experience of Horace D’Almayne’s true character. She had every reason to do so; his threat of revealing the clandestine visit she was prepared to forestall, if necessary, by an honest confession of the entire affair, preferring to bear with her husband’s fretful displeasure (of which, if the truth must be told, she did not stand very greatly in awe), rather than to excite his suspicions by a concealment which would lend countenance to the insinuations of this anonymous correspondent—yes! she had every reason to tell all she knew concerning him, even to his late avowal of affection, and yet she felt she could not do it. In the first place she shrank, as any pure-minded woman would shrink, from confessing that such an avowal had been made to her; but especially did she shrink from confessing it to such a nature as that of Mr. Crane: he would never see the matter in its true light—never believe that she had not, in some measure, encouraged such advances—never comprehend the disgust and loathing with which they had inspired her. But another and more stringent reason withheld her—her brother Frederick! she still believed that D’Almayne had befriended him, and saved him from, at all events, the immediate consequence of the dilemma into which his youth and inexperience had plunged him: true, she mistrusted his object in performing this act of benevolence—or, rather, she felt convinced that he had done it merely to establish a claim on her gratitude;—still the fact remained the same—in her difficulty, when all other human aid appeared to have forsaken her, he had come to her assistance, and by doing so had saved her brother: believing this, could she expose his baseness? The question was a difficult one.
CHAPTER LVIII.—DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.
Those who are skilled to read that strange, yet easily to be penetrated mystery, a woman’s heart, will have at once decided how Kate Crane determined to act in regard to D’Almayne—he had saved her brother, and though he had offered her an unpardonable insult, she would not betray him, so she replied calmly—“I should on that point advise you as I did on the former one: reflect whether the accusation is likely to be true; whether you have observed any encouragement given by me to Mr. D’Almayne; whether, from what you know of my character, you imagine it likely that I should be so devoid of principle, so wanting in self-respect, as to accept Mr. D’Almayne’s or any other man’s attentions. Recollect a speech I once made you, which really appears as if I had had a presentiment of this accusation—a speech in which I begged you to bear in mind that, if at any time comments should be made on the intimate footing on which Mr. D’Almayne visited at this house, it was according to your expressed wish and desire that he did so, and on that account only did I tolerate it. If, when you have thus considered the matter, you still feel dissatisfied, I advise you to use every endeavour to arrive at the truth. My own opinion is, that the letter being written by (as the writer honestly enough confesses) an enemy of Mr. D’Almayne’s, he has raked up every accusation which scandal may have invented to blacken that gentleman’s character; still, as, if there is any truth in the charges, the knowledge of it would prove of great importance to you, it behoves you quietly and carefully to inquire into them, and I would recommend you to do so without delay.”