Cobwebs and Cables

by Hesba Stretton

To Jean Merle Phebe Marlowe was little altered, save that she had grown from a simple rustic maiden into a cultivated and refined woman. The sweet and gentle face beside him, with the deep peaceful blue of her eyes, and the sensitive mouth so ready to break into a smile, was the same he had seen when, on that terrible evening so many years ago, he had craved her help to escape from his dreaded punishment. "I will help you, even to dying for you and yours," she had said. He remembered vividly how mournfully the girlish fervor of her manner had impressed him. Even now he had no one else to help him; this woman's little hand alone could reach him in the gulf where he lay; only the simple, pitiful wisdom of her faithful heart could find a way for him out of this misery of his into some place of safety and peace. He was willing to follow wherever she might guide him.

"I can see only one duty before us," she said, when the service was over, and they stood together before one of the monuments in the Abbey; "I think Mr. Clifford ought to know."

"What will he do, Phebe?" asked Jean Merle. "God knows if I had only myself to think of I would go into a convict-prison as thankfully as if it was the gate of heaven. It would be as the gate of heaven to me if I could pay the penalty of my crime. But there are Felicita and my children; and the greater shock and shame to them of my conviction now."

"Yet if Mr. Clifford demanded the penalty it must even now be paid," answered Phebe; "but he will not. One reason why he ought to know is that he mourns over you still, day and night, as if he had been the chief cause of your death. He reproaches himself with his implacability both towards you and his son. But even if the old resentment should awaken, it is right you should run the risk. Why need it be known to any one but us two that Felicita knew you were still alive?"

"If we could save her and the children I should be satisfied," said Jean Merle.

"It would kill her to know you were here," answered Phebe, looking round her with a terrified glance, as if she expected to see Felicita; "she is not strong, and a sudden agitation and distress might cause her death instantly. No, she must never know. And I am not afraid of Mr. Clifford; he will forgive you with all his heart; and he will be made glad in his old age. I will go down with you this evening. There is a train at four o'clock, and we shall reach Riversborough at eight. Be at the station to meet me."

"You know," said Jean Merle, "that the lapse of years does not free one from trial and conviction? Mr. Clifford can give me into the hands of the police at once; and to-night may see me lodged in Riversborough jail, as if I had been arrested fourteen years ago. You know this, Phebe?"

"Yes, I know it, but I am not afraid of it," she answered.

She had not the slightest fear of old Mr. Clifford's vindictiveness. As she travelled down to Riversborough, with Jean Merle in a third-class carriage of the same train, her mind was very busy with troubled thoughts. There was an unquiet joy stirring in the secret depths of her heart, but she was too full of anxiety and bewilderment to be altogether aware of it. Though it was not more than twenty-four hours since she had known otherwise, it seemed to her as if she had never believed that Roland Sefton was dead, and it appeared incredible that the report of his death should have received such full acceptance as it had everywhere done. Yet though he had come back, there could be no welcome for him. To her and to old Mr. Clifford only could this return from the grave contain any gladness. And was she glad? she asked herself, after a long deliberation over the difficulties surrounding this strange reappearance. She had sorrowed for him and comforted his mother in her mourning, and talked of him as one talks fondly of the dead to his children; and all the sacred healing of time had softened the grief she once felt into a tranquil and grateful memory of him, as of the friend she had loved most, and whose care for her had most widely influenced her life. But she could not own yet that she was glad.

Old Mr. Clifford was sitting in the wainscoted dining-room, his favorite room, when Phebe opened the door silently, and looked in with a pale and anxious face. His sight was dim, and a blaze of light fell upon the dark, old panels, and the old-fashioned silver tankards and bright brass salvers on the carved sideboard. Two or three of Phebe's sunniest pictures hung against the oaken panels. There was a blazing fire on the hearth, and the old man, with his elbows resting on the arms of his chair, and his hands clasped lightly, was watching the play and dance of the flames as they shot up the chimney. Some new books lay on a table beside him, but he was not reading. He was sitting there in utter loneliness, with no companionship except that of his own fading memories. Phebe's tenderness for the old man was very great; and she paused on the threshold gazing at him pitifully; whilst Jean Merle, standing in the hall behind her, caught a glimpse of the hearth so crowded with memories for him, but occupied now by one desolate old man, before the door was closed, and he was left without.