“But, Richard,” cried Claire, “I always thought that—that she was dead.”
“He told me so,” replied Linnell sadly. “She was dead to him. There, you have read all. It was right that you should know. Colonel Mellersh has told me the rest.”
Linnell crumpled up the letter, and then smoothed it out, and folded and placed it in his breast.
“It is right,” he said again, “that you should know the truth. Mellersh is my father’s oldest friend. They were youths together. When the terrible shock came upon my father that he was alone, and that his wife had fled with a man whom he had made his companion after Mellersh had gone upon foreign service, his whole life was changed, and he became the quiet, subdued recluse you see.”
Linnell paused for a few minutes, and then went on:
“Mellersh had idolised my mother when she was a bright fashion-loving girl; but he accepted his fate when she gave the preference to my father. When he came home from India and found what had happened, and that this wretch had cast her off, he shot the betrayer of my father’s name, and then sought out and rescued my mother, placing her as you have read, at her desire, here.”
“But, Richard dear, I am so dull and foolish—I can only think of one person that this could possibly have been; and it could not be—”
“Miss Clode? Yes, that was the name she took. My mother, Claire. What do you say to me now?”
Claire rose from her seat gently, and laid her hand upon her arm.
“We must keep her secret, Richard,” she said; “but let us go to her together now.”