“O Rhoda,” said Mrs. Farren, “we’ve all thought you seemed stern and strange lately, but we didn’t know until to-day that you had found out our secret. He says that it has been all wrong from the beginning; he thinks you ought to have heard the truth at once.”
“The truth, mother?” echoed Rhoda. “What is it that you mean?”
“He says, dear Rhoda, that he ought to have told you who he was,” Mrs. Farren replied. “He sees now that it was wrong to come here under a new name.”
“A new name!” her daughter repeated. “For pity’s sake, mother, speak plainly. Who is he, if he is not Ralph Channell?”
“We all thought you must have found out,” said Mrs. Farren, in a perplexed tone. “He is poor Helen’s husband—Robert Clarris.”
It was not until some minutes had passed away that Rhoda was calm enough to hear her mother’s story. The two sat hand in hand, nearer to each other in heart than they had ever been before. Perhaps Mrs. Farren had always been a little afraid of her daughter; but now that she had got a glimpse into Rhoda’s inner self the reserve vanished.
“We had always felt sure that Robert was no practised sinner,” she began; “but we did not know what it was that had driven him to a crime—we only guessed something like the truth. O Rhoda, it’s an awful thing when vanity gets the upper hand with a woman! Poor Helen made a sad confession to me when she lay dying in this very room. It’s hard to speak of the faults of the dead; but there’s justice to be done to the living.”
“Whatever her faults may have been, they were no worse than mine,” Rhoda said, humbly; “and she has done with sinning now, while I shall be going on—perhaps for years longer.”
“Helen got deeply into debt,” Mrs. Farren continued; “and she used, I am afraid, to go to balls and theatres without her husband’s knowledge. He was sent away sometimes on business by Mr. Elton. But don’t think her worse than she was, Rhoda—she loved gaiety and admiration passionately, but she wasn’t a bad woman at heart—he always knew and believed that; yet she got him into terrible difficulties, poor child! And at last, when her debts had amounted to three hundred pounds, she flung herself at his feet and confessed the truth.”
Both the women were crying. It was indeed hard to expose the faults and follies of the dead. They felt as if they had been tearing the soft turf and sweet flowers from Helen’s grave; and yet it had to be done.