Lover or Friend

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

'"You are the worst wife that a man could have," he would say to me. "You would not care if I were brought home dead any day, and yet if the boy's finger aches you want to send for the doctor. If I go to the bad, it will be your own fault, because you never have a kind look or word for me."

'But he might as well have spoken to the wind. There was no love for Mat in my heart, and I worshipped my boy.'

'You are speaking now of your eldest son?'

'Yes; of Cyril. He was my first-born, and I doted on him. I had two other children before Kester came; but, happily, they died—I say happily, for I had hard work to make ends meet with three children. I was so wrapped up in my boy that I neglected Mat more and more; and when he took to going out of an evening I made no complaints. We were getting on better then, and I seldom quarrelled with him, unless he refused to give me money for the children. Perhaps he was afraid to cross me, for the money was generally forthcoming when I asked for it; but I never took the trouble to find out how he procured it. And he was only too pleased to find me good-tempered and ready to talk to him, or to bring Cyril to play with him; for he was fond of the boy, too. Well, things went on tolerably smoothly until Mollie was born; but she was only a few months old when the crash came.'

She stopped, and an angry darkness came over her face.

'You need not tell me,' returned Michael, anxious to spare her as much as possible. 'I am aware of the forgery for which your husband incurred penal servitude for so many years.'

'You know that!' she exclaimed, with a terrified stare. 'Who could have told you? Oh, I forgot Mat's brother at Brail! Why did I never guess that Audrey's old friend she so often mentioned was this Tom O'Brien? But there are other O'Briens—there was one at Richmond when we lived there—and I thought he was still in his shop.'

'We heard all the leading facts from him; he told Audrey everything.'

'Then you shall hear my part now,' she returned, with flashing eyes. 'What do you suppose were my feelings when I heard the news that Mat was in prison, and that my boy's father was a convicted felon? What do you imagine were my thoughts when I sat in my lodgings, with my children round me, knowing that this heritage of shame was on them?'

'It was very bad for you,' he whispered softly, for her tragical aspect impressed him with a sense of grandeur. She was not good: by her own account she had been an unloving wife; but in her way she had been strong—only her strength had been for evil.