The Heart of a Mystery

by T. W. Speight

One day, when Isabel had been about a year married, a strange woman called upon her and announced herself as Warren Strickland's first wife, producing in proof of her claim what purported to be a certificate of marriage at a registrar's office, which anyone less ignorant of such matters than Isabel would at once have seen to be an impudent forgery. That Warren, when scarcely more than a boy--indeed, he was hardly more than that when he married--had been entangled in the toils of the woman, who was some half-dozen years his senior, and in a moment of infatuation had promised her marriage, there was little reason to doubt. Finding herself jilted, and Warren married to another, she had determined on the scheme of revenge described above. Unfortunately Isabel chose to believe the woman's tale, so plausibly was it told, and backed up by such apparent proofs; and without waiting to question Warren, she at once quitted her lodgings, taking her child with her, and leaving behind her a note in which she told her husband that she had left him for ever and the reason why, and begging of him, if he had any love for her still left, to make no attempt to find her.

It was not till three or four days after Isabel had gone that the blow fell. Warren had run up to town to bid his wife a hurried farewell. His regiment was ordered to India, where a frontier war had just broken out, and he was due to embark at Portsmouth forty-eight hours later. For a few hours he was like a man bereft of reason; then the necessity for immediate action of some kind forced him, in his own despite, to face the facts of the case with some degree of outward calmness. At length he decided to adopt the only course which seemed to hold out any prospect of success. To have himself set about any search for his wife with only a few hours at his command would have been the sheerest folly. Having contrived, by means best known to himself, to raise a hundred pounds, he went to a Private Inquiry Agent and placed the whole of the facts in his hands, giving the man an address in India to write to. Little as it seemed at the time, it was all he could do, and a few hours later he went aboard ship.

Whether the agent used his best endeavors to trace Isabel and failed in the attempt, or whether he quietly pocketed his fee and satisfied his conscience by making a few perfunctory but futile inquiries was a point as to which nothing was ever known, nor ever would be now, the man himself having died a few months later. In any case no communication from him ever reached Warren Strickland. As it fell out, however, the young soldier came by his death within a year after landing, having been mortally wounded in a skirmish with some of the hill tribes. He lived long enough to enable him to dictate a letter to his father--who was himself in India at the time, but a thousand miles away from where his son lay dying--in which he told him all about his marriage and the flight of Isabel; making it his last request that on his father's return to England, he should use every endeavor to find his daughter-in-law and her child, and prove to Isabel how terribly mistaken she had been in acting as she had. With his letter the dying man enclosed his marriage certificate. For reasons which need not be detailed, Major Strickland had been precluded from doing anything towards the fulfilment of his son's last wishes till a month or two before his first call on Miss Pengarvon.

"There is one question," said the Major, in conclusion, addressing himself directly to Hermia, "which I have refrained from asking till after I had told you all there is to tell, as far as I am concerned. It is about your mother, my dear. Is she still living? Is she----?" Something in the girl's face bade him pause.

"Not till yesterday did I know who my mother was, or anything about her," replied Hermia, in broken accents. "But she is dead--so I am now told. She died when I was only a few weeks old."

"Is that indeed so?" said the Major, with a sigh. "Then the hope of finding her, and of proving to her the utter falsity of the charge made by that vile woman against my poor boy must now be abandoned for ever. But had it not been for my endeavors to trace her, I should not have found you. For that, my dear child, I can never be sufficiently thankful. I have no one but you in the world, and already I feel that you are very dear to me."

They were sitting on the sofa side by side. The Major moved a little nearer to the girl, and taking her head gently between his hands, he drew it towards him and kissed her tenderly on the forehead. Then Hermia's arms were wound round his neck, and with her cheek resting against his shoulder, her overcharged heart found its natural relief in tears. Aunt Charlotte rose, and beckoning to Clem, they left grandfather and granddaughter together.

The ladies had retired for the night, and the Major and Clem were sitting over a final weed.

"It seems to me," said the former, after they had smoked awhile in silence, "now my granddaughter and I have been brought together in a way so strange and unexpected, that we ought to make Miss Pengarvon acquainted with what has come to pass, and give her one last opportunity of acknowledging her niece. If, after that, she still persists in the course she has hitherto followed, I do not think that either Hermia or I will care to trouble her in time to come. But what is your opinion, Dr. Hazeldine?"

It may here be remarked that the relation in which Clement and Hermia stood towards each other had been duly explained to Major Strickland in an "aside" by Aunt Charlotte, although he had probably guessed the truth by the time he had been ten minutes in their company; whereupon he had at once shaken hands heartily with Clem, and had declared laughingly, that he was sincerely glad to hear that the task of finding a husband for his granddaughter had been taken off his hands, and that the arrangement met with his entire approbation.