“Who is—Sally?” she muttered.
Despite herself, her voice seemed to fail her on the word. And she dared not meet their eyes.
“Who’s Sally?” Mrs. Gilson repeated briskly. “Why, his wife, to be sure! Who should she be?”
CHAPTER V
A JEZEBEL
There was a loud drumming in Henrietta’s ears, and a dimness before her eyes. In the midst of this a voice, which she would not have known for her own, cried loudly and clearly, “No!” And again, more violently, “No!”
“But it is ‘Yes’!” the landlady answered coolly. “Why not? D’you think”—with rough contempt—“he’s the first man that’s lied to a woman? or you’re the first woman that’s believed a rascal? She’s his wife right enough, my girl”—comfortably. “Don’t he ask after his children? If you’ll turn to the bottom of the second page you’ll see for yourself! Oh, quite the family man, he is!”
The girl’s hand shook like ash-leaves in a light breeze; the paper rustled in her grasp. But she had regained command of herself—she came of a stiff, proud stock, and the very brusqueness of the landlady helped her; and she read word after word and line after line of the letter. She passed from the bottom of the second sheet to the head of the third, and so to the end. But so slowly, so laboriously that it was plain that her mind was busy reading between the lines—was busy comparing, sifting, remembering.
To Bishop’s credit be it said, he kept his eyes off the girl. But at last he spoke.
“I’d that letter from his wife’s hand,” he said. “They are married right enough—in Hounslow Church, miss. She lives there, two doors from the ‘George’ posting-house, where folks change horses between London and Windsor. She was a waiting-maid in the coffee-room, and ’twas a rise for her. But she’s not seen him for three years—reason, he’s been in hiding—nor had a penny from him. Now she’s got it he’s taken up with some woman hereabouts, and she put me on the scent. He’s a fine gift of the gab, but for all that his father’s naught but a little apothecary, and as smooth a rogue and as big a Radical, one as the other! I wish to goodness,” the runner continued, suddenly reminded of his loss, “I’d took him last night when he came in! But——”
“That’ll do!” Mrs. Gilson said, cutting him short, as if he were a tap she had turned on for her own purposes. “You can go now!”