Yes; the thought of the coming separation, of the certain and inevitable separation, cheered Bet, and made her feel that her lot was endurable.
She was to be a bride to-morrow! How strange! She felt accustomed now to the idea of being almost a bride. It was only a few weeks back that she sat in another attic waiting for the dawn of another wedding-day, and the embrace of another bridegroom. She had not been happy then,—she had been full of fear and apprehension; but the heart now so queer, and dull and heavy, had beat fast, and the eyes had been bright with intense excitement, and in her restless dread and earnest longing she had paced the floor of Mother Bunch's attic until the very dawn. Then she had been unhappy, but she had been alive. Now, what had come over her? Had the spirit of the real Bet Granger gone away with Will over the dancing sea? Had it refused to be parted from her true lover, and was Isaac Dent only marrying a dead woman?
During the fortnight that Bet had spent at Warrington she had searched high and low for her father and the boys. Of course, she had searched in vain. It was quite possible for a clever man like Dent to furnish her with endless clues which all led to nothing. His object was to give her a reason for remaining in Warrington—his object was to keep her at any hazard out of Liverpool. He knew that in Liverpool the knowledge of his treachery towards Will could not long be concealed from her. She would meet Hester Wright—she would meet one friend or another who would certainly tell her that the lad for whom she had sold herself was still in prison.
After they were married—oh! then it mattered nothing at all. Then his triumph would be all the greater when the bad man showed her that, although she was his absolutely, she had done nothing for Will by her deed of self-sacrifice.
Jenny had been a good friend to Bet during the last fortnight. She knew Dent, but did not admire him; and it was an unceasing puzzle to her how any promise could bind Bet to such a man.
"You'll be his forever," she said. "Well, I wouldn't have him—not for no price. I wouldn't be his wife, not if you was to pay me for it. And the other lad, he'll come back from sea, and he won't like to see you Isaac's wife. It's a wrong promise you ha' made, Bet Granger; and you needn't go for to tell me nothing else. If I was you, I wouldn't keep it. Don't 'ee, now, Bet—don't 'ee. Think of the other poor sailor feller—how he'll look at yer when he comes back from sea!"
At first, when Jenny spoke like this, Bet had shut her up with a few sharp words, but of late she had taken no notice; her face every day had grown duller, and her words further apart. Her whole attitude was so dull and lifeless that Jenny gave up teasing her; and finding that, from being an entertaining companion, she was now one of the dullest, left her a good deal to herself.
Bet sat on in the attic, and presently the fire went out, and only the moonlight lit up her little dreary room. Bet closed her eyes, and fell into a heavy doze; she slept for about ten minutes, and, whether that sleep had refreshed her, and lifted a cloud from her brain, no one can say, but she awoke in quite a different mood: the apathy and indifference of the last few days had left her; she was once more keenly alive, keenly suffering and rebellious.
The events of the two last months—all the story which had come to her since her mother's death-kept flitting like a series of pictures before her vivid imagination. She saw Will's face with a tender light in the eyes; she felt his breath on her cheek, and her hand seemed again to be clasped in his. Once more she heard Hester and Will singing together—
"I had a message to send her—
To be whom my soul loved best,
But I had my task to finish,
And she had gone home to rest."