Ere he had finished speaking Ada had thrown herself into his arms, and was looking proudly in his scarred face.
“Sir Murray Gernon,” he continued, after an instant’s pause, “I refused to meet you, and I have now told you the true reason for my having done so. In this world we shall probably never meet again. Our paths lie, as they ought, in different directions. It is fit they should. But once more, I swear before Heaven that your base charges are false. Go, and by honest, manly confession, try and win her back to life, and obtain her forgiveness. Tell her that I kept my word, even to making myself for her sake a coward in the eyes of the world.”
As he ceased speaking, he turned from Sir Murray to gaze down in his wife’s face. There was a sad, despairing look in his countenance, though, that troubled her; it was the same drawn, haggard aspect that she had looked on years before; but as she clung to him closer and closer, twining her arms more tightly round him, and trying to draw that pale, scarred face to hers, the wild, scared aspect slowly faded away, for from her eyes he seemed to draw life and hope, and at last, with a sigh that seemed torn from his breast’s utmost depths, he pressed his lips upon her forehead, and then turned once more to confront his accuser.
But they were alone; for, after listening with conflicting thoughts to Norton’s words, Sir Murray Gernon had slowly turned upon his heel, leaving the room, unnoticed.
Jane’s Heart.
“Oh, dear!—oh, dear! what shall I do?—what shall I do?” sobbed Jane Barker. “What a wicked set we must all be for the troubles to come bubbling and rolling over us like this in a great water-flood. There’s poor Sir Murray half-mad with grief, shutting himself up in his library, and never hardly so much as eating or drinking a bit. There’s my own dear, sweet lady lying there day after day, with the lids shut down over those poor soft eyes of hers, never moving, and nobody knowing whether she’s living or dead, only when she gives one of those little sobbing sighs. And then there’s the poor old Rector, coming every day over and over again to see how she is, and looking as if his heart would break; and poor Mrs Elstree wandering up and down the passages like a ghost. Oh, dear!—oh, dear!—oh, dear! the place isn’t like the same, and I don’t know what’s to become of us all. One didn’t need to have jewels missing, and poor servants suspected of taking them, and sent away without a month’s warning, and not a bit of character. But oh, John!—John!—John! it wasn’t a month’s warning you had, but many months’ warning; and it wasn’t you stole the cross, but let something steal away all your good heart and good looks too.”
Here Jane Barker burst out into a passionate fit of weeping, sobbing as though her heart would break. She was sitting by her open window—one looking over a part of the shrubbery which concealed the servants’ offices from the view of those who strolled through the grounds. It was not the first night by many that Jane had sat there bewailing her troubles, for it had become a favourite custom with her to sit there, thoughtful and silent, till her passionate grief brought forth some such outburst as the above. Busy the whole day at her work about the sick-chamber of her lady, Jane told herself that at such times there was something else for her to do beside sorrowing; but when at midnight all about was wrapped in silence, the poor girl would sit or kneel at her window, mourning and crying for hour after hour.
“Oh, my poor dear lady! If it should come to the worst, and her never to look upon the little soft face of that sweet babe, sent to be a comfort to her when she’s been so solitary and unhappy all these years; for she has been. Oh! these men—these men! They break our poor hearts, they do! Why didn’t the Captain come back sooner and make her happy? or why didn’t he die in real earnest over in the hot Ingies, where they said he was killed, and not come back just then to make her heart sore, as I know it has been ever since? though, poor soul, she loves, honours, and obeys her husband as she should. There didn’t never ought to be any marrying at all, for it’s always been an upset to me ever since I thought about it; and him such a proper man, too, as he used to be—such a nice red and white face, and always so smart till he took to the drink; as I told him, he got to love it ever so much better than he loved me, though he always coaxed me round into forgiving him. I always knew it was weak; but then I couldn’t help it, and I didn’t make myself; and if poor women are made weak and helpless, what can they do?
“I always told him it would be his ruin, and begged of him to give it up—and oh! the times he’s kissed me and promised me he would! And then for it to come to this. He’d never have said such cruel things about my lady if it had not been for the drink; and though I’d forgive him almost anything, I couldn’t forgive him for speaking as he did. I do think he likes me, and that it isn’t all for the sake of the bit of money, which he might have and welcome if it would do him any good. If he would only leave off writing to me, and asking me to meet him when he knows I daren’t, and every letter breaking my heart, and at a time, too, when I’ve got nowhere to go and sit down and cry. No; let him mend a bit, and show me that he’s left off the drink, and my poor dear lady get well first, and I’ll leave directly, as I told him I would, and work and slave for him all my life, just for the sake of a few kind words; for I know I’m only a poor ignorant woman; but I can love him very—very much, and—”