“I am calm.”
Christie Bayle felt the cold dew stand upon his brow as he faced the pale, stern face before him. It did not seem the Millicent Hallam he knew, but one at enmity with him for holding back from her that which was her very life.
“Why do you not speak?” she said angrily; and she took a step forward.
In a flash, as it were, Christie Bayle seemed to see into the future, and in that future he saw, as it were, the simple happy little home he had made for the woman he had once loved crumbling away into nothingness, the years of peace gone for ever, and a dark future of pain and misery usurping their place. The dew upon his brow grew heavier, and as Sir Gordon’s eyes ranged from one to the other he could read that the anguish in the countenance of the man he had made his friend was as great as that suffered by the woman to whom, in the happy past, they had talked of love. He started as Bayle spoke; his voice sounded so calm and emotionless; at times it was slightly husky, but it gained strength as he went on, its effect being, as he took Mrs Hallam’s hands to make her sink upon her knees at his feet her anger gone, and the calm of his spirit seeming to influence her own.
“I hesitated to speak,” he said, “until I had prepared you for what I had to say.”
“Prepared?” she cried. “What have all these terrible years been but my probation?”
“Yes, I know,” said Bayle; “but still I hesitated. Yes,” he said quickly, “I have heard from Mr Hallam. He has written to me—enclosing a letter for his wife.” As he spoke he took the letter from his breast, and Mrs Hallam caught it, reading the direction with swimming eyes.
“Julie!” she panted, starting to her feet, “read—read it—quickly—whisper, my child!”
She turned her back to the men, and held the unopened letter beneath the lamp.
Julia stretched out her hand to take the letter, but her mother drew it quickly back, with an alarmed look at her child, holding it tightly with both hands the next moment to the light; and Julia read through her tears in a low quick voice: