I KNEW very well that this note would produce a tremendous sensation in the Oliphant family, and, as I walked down to the bank, I considered whether so violent a demonstration was justifiable. But I soon came to the conclusion that it was not a mere feint, and that if my wife would not live with me in Needham Street, she could not live with me anywhere else. If she did not choose to share my lot in the pretty residence I had provided for her, I would not pay her board in Tremont Street.
I wanted my wife. I had not married Mrs. Oliphant, and was willing to dispense with the benefit of her advice. Perhaps it was reckless in me to do so, but no man had ever made up his mind on any point more decidedly than I had made up mine on this one. I attended to my duties as usual, but there was a sort of grimness about everything I did which astonished me, if it did not any one else.
At my usual hour I rang the bell of my house with a more intense anxiety than had before agitated me. If the savage measure I had taken did not bring Lilian and her mother to their senses, nothing would, and the breach must be regarded as permanent. I hoped and confidently expected to find my wife in the house, and I braced my nerves for the scene which must ensue. Biddy opened the door, with a sweet smile on her face which augured well for my anticipations.
“There’s a bit of a letther on the table for ye’s, sir,” said she, as I hung up my hat in the hall. “Shtop! and I’ll bring it to ye’s.”
“A bit of a letther!” Was that all? Of course it was from Lilian. She did not intend to surrender without conditions, Biddy handed me the missive. It was in my wife’s pretty hand-writing, but I was disappointed, and more than ever disposed to be morose. I opened the envelope.
“Come and see me this afternoon, Paley.
“Lilian.”
That was all. The case did not look hopeful. If I went I must fight the battle with “dear ma.” I promptly decided that it would be worse than folly for me to heed this request. It was only an ingenious device of Mrs. Oliphant to carry her point by some new strategy. To go would be to throw myself into the toils of the enemy.
Biddy stood looking at me while I read the “bit of a letther.” If she did not suspect the trouble, she was more stupid than I supposed. She was a good girl, though her manners needed some improvement. If the wife was ill, the place of the husband was at her side. My gem of the Green Isle could reason out this proposition without exploding her brain. She must understand that a family tempest was gathering.