Laid up in Lavender

by Stanley John Weyman

"Indeed," I said, with a very nasty feeling inside me. "What about Jim? And why did you tear it up, my dear? One half of it, I should say, has gone into the fire."

"It was from--a woman!" she answered.

And presently she told me that the letter, which was unsigned, asserted that Jim had played with the affections of the writer, and warned Kitty to be on her guard against him, and not to be a party to the wrong he was doing an innocent girl.

"Pooh!" I said, with a contemptuous laugh. "That cock will not fight, my dear. It has been tried over and over again. You do not mean to say that that has made you cry? Why, if so, you are--you are just as big a fool as any girl I know."

In truth, I was surprised to find Kitty's faith in her lover, which had been proof against a charge made on the best of evidence, fail before an unsigned accusation--because, forsooth, it mentioned a woman. "What postmark did it bear?" I asked.

"Frome," she murmured.

That was certainly odd--very odd. Pretty devilments I knew those fellows at crammers' were up to sometimes. Could it be that we were mistaken in Master Jim, as I have once or twice known a lad's family to be mistaken in him? Was he all the time an out-and-out bad one? Or had he some enemy at Frome plotting against his happiness? This seemed most unlikely and absurd besides; since we had lit upon Isaac Gold by a chance, and on the portrait by a chance within a chance, and no enemy, however acute--not Machiavelli himself--could have foreseen the rencontre or arranged the circumstances which had led me to the photograph. Therefore, though the anonymous letter might be the work of an ill-wisher, I did not see how the other could be. However, I gathered up the few fragments of writing which had escaped the fire, and put them aside, to serve, if need be, for evidence.

On one thing I was making up my mind, however--I must put an end to the matter between Jim and my girl unless he could clear himself of these suspicions--when what should I hear but his voice, and his father's, in the hall. There is something in the sound of a familiar voice which so recalls our knowledge of the speaker that I know nothing which pierces the cloud of doubt more thoroughly. At any rate, when the two came in, I jumped up and gave a hand to each. Behind Jim's back one might suspect him: confronted by his open eyes, and his brown, honest, boyish face--well, by the Lord! I could as soon suspect my old comrade, God bless him!

"Jim," I found myself saying, his hand in mine, and every one of my prudent resolutions gone to the wind, "Jim, my boy, I am a happy man. Take her and be good to her, and God bless you! No, Colonel, no," I continued in desperate haste, "I do not ask a question. Let the lad take her. If your son cannot be trusted no one can. There, I am glad that is settled."

I verily believe I was almost blubbering; and though I said only what I should have said if this confounded matter had never arisen, I let drop, it seems, enough to set the Colonel questioning, for in five minutes I had told him the whole story of the photograph.