East of the Shadows

by Mrs. Hubert Barclay

She thought of the little brooch, "Your heart and mine,"—the only visible link which connected her father with the story at all. How had it come into his possession? Surely, if Phil had returned it with other tokens of her engagement, it must have fallen into Lady Louisa's hands. Had she perhaps overlooked it at first, and then, before she died, sent it to her brother—a mute appeal for forgiveness, a silent confession of regret? The explanation was conjectural, but it was possible. Philippa would have liked to know it true, for it would have been some comfort to her father.

She thought of old Jane Goodman, comforted by the certainty which seemed to the girl so entirely without foundation, that her mere presence would dispel all the trouble that had wrecked a life.

She tried to think consecutively, to argue fairly, weighing the matter judicially, noting all points, for and against, in the hope that by this means her decision might be rendered more simple, but it was impossible. Her thoughts would not be controlled, they wandered this way and that. At one moment she felt certain that she could not condemn a fellow-creature to distress if any action of hers could prevent it, the next she was tortured by the simple question of right and wrong: whether if she allowed Francis Heathcote to remain under his misapprehension as to her identity, it was not much the same thing as deliberate deception, a lie, in short? And yet, the truth was to him nothing more nor less than his death sentence. Could she be the one to push him back into the darkness from which she had all unwittingly rescued him?

"A little happiness for all the years he has missed—a little happiness until he dies." For a few hours, or perhaps weeks—who could tell?

Was it not an act of simple human charity she was called upon to perform? Could it not be considered something similar to acting as an understudy—continuing a rôle which had been left with some last lines unsaid by the principal actor? Why need she hesitate to respond to the urgent appeal for comfort and for help? "No brightness—only darkness, until you came. Ah, dear love! the shadows when you do not come! Phil! Dear love! At last!"

Small wonder that the dawn found her wide-eyed and unrested, and that when the hour came for her to rise she was prostrated with nervous headache and fatigue, utterly incapable of the slightest effort. And so the next day passed. At noon there came a note from the doctor, saying she need be under no anxiety. His patient was quiet and as well as could be expected.

On the afternoon of the next day but one, the necessity of obtaining fresh air and a strong desire to meet Isabella Vernon again drove her out of doors. She was almost surprised to find how keen was her wish to pursue the acquaintance so informally begun; she could not account for it. It was certainly not at the moment any desire to gain information about the past; that had entirely left her. She wished rather to gain relief from the subject, to try if possible to lay it aside for a time, and she had not the smallest intention of admitting a stranger into the difficulties which beset her. No, it was some personal attraction about the woman which drew her in a most unusual way. Philippa was not in the habit of feeling drawn to people of whom she had so slight a knowledge, and she was inclined to think that it was only a feeling of loneliness which prompted her to seek the only person to whom she could talk in an ordinary, everyday way, and so obtain an antidote for the clamour and unrest of mind of which she was only too conscious.

She had barely mounted the hill on to Bessmoor, and felt the wind blowing cool from the sea with a salt tang most refreshing to her, than she saw, a few yards off the road, and under the shelter of some gnarled thorn-bushes, a little encampment, and she directed her steps towards it.

Miss Vernon was seated on the ground beside a small cart, and at a little distance away a donkey stood contentedly, flicking away the flies which disturbed his peace.

To a critical observer the down-trodden state of the grass and undergrowth might have suggested that the place had been occupied for more than a few hours, but Philippa was not in a mood to be observant, or to wonder how long the other had waited for her arrival. Nor did Isabella Vernon say a word to betray the fact that she had spent the whole of the previous day in precisely her present position, having carefully chosen a point of vantage from which any one coming along the road from Bessacre could not by any means fail to be visible to her.