CHAPTER XXX. — JAILER AND CAPTIVE.
On the following day Edith felt stronger, and calling Mrs. Dunbar, she sent her to Wiggins with a request that the latter should meet her in the drawing-room. She then walked through the long hall on her way down stairs. Every thing looked as it did before her illness, except that one change had taken place which arrested her attention the moment she entered the drawing-room.
Over the chimney-piece a portrait had been hung—a portrait in a large gilt frame, which looked as though it had been painted but recently. It was a portrait of Leon Dudleigh. On catching sight of this she felt as if she had been rooted to the spot. She looked at it for a short time with compressed lips, frowning brow, and clinched hands after which she walked away and flung herself into a chair.
Wiggins was evidently in no hurry, for it was more than half an hour before he made his appearance. Edith sat in her chair, waiting for his approach. The traces of her recent illness were very visible in the pallor of her face, and in her thin, transparent hands. Her large eyes seemed larger than ever, as they glowed luminously from their cavernous depths, with a darker hue around each, as is often seen in cases of sickness or debility, while upon her face there was an expression of profound sadness that seemed fixed and unalterable.
But in the tone with which she addressed Wiggins there was nothing like sadness. It was proud, cold, stern, and full of bitterest hostility.
“I have sent for you,” she began, “because you, Wiggins, are concerned as much as I myself am in the issue of this business about which I am going to speak. I have suffered a very gross outrage, but I still have confidence both in a just Heaven and in the laws of the land. This ruffian, who now it seems calls himself Leon Dudleigh—your confederate—has, with your assistance, cheated me into taking part in a ceremony which he calls a marriage. What you propose to gain for yourself by this I can not imagine; for it seems to me that it would have been rather for your advantage to remain the sole master of your ward than to help some one else to share your authority. But for your purposes I care nothing—the evil is done. Yet if this Leon Dudleigh or you think that I will sit tamely down under such an intolerable wrong, you are miserably mistaken. Sooner or later I shall be avenged. Sooner or later I shall gain my freedom, and then my turn shall come. I wish you to see that there is danger before you; and I wish you also to understand that it is for your interest to be my sole master, as you were before. I have sent for you, then, to ask you, Wiggins, to expel this man Leon Dudleigh from the house. Be my guardian again, and I will be your ward. More: I agree to remain here in a state of passive endurance for a reasonable time—one or two years, for instance; and I promise during that time to make no complaint. Do this—drive this man away—and you shall have no reason to regret it. On the other hand; remember there is an alternative. Villain though this man is, I may come to terms with him, and buy my liberty from him by giving him half of the estate, or even the whole of it. In that case it seems to me that you would lose every thing, for Leon Dudleigh is as great a villain as yourself.”
As Edith spoke, Wiggins listened most attentively. He had seated himself not far from her, and after one look at her had fixed his eyes on the floor. He waited patiently until she had said all she wished to say. Edith herself had not hoped to gain much by this interview, but she hoped at least to be able to discover something concerning the nature of the partnership which she supposed to exist among her enemies, and something perhaps about their plans. The averted face of Wiggins seemed to her the attitude of conscious guilt; but she felt a little puzzled at signs of emotion which he exhibited, and which seemed hardly the result of conscious guilt. Once or twice a perceptible shudder passed through his frame; his bent head bowed lower; he covered his face with his hands; and at her last words there came from him a low moan that seemed to indicate suffering.