"On one point I must do Philip Cordery justice. He did not marry me for the sake of my fortune, which, indeed, was only a matter of a few hundreds of pounds left me by my mother's sister. Neither could he expect anything at my father's death, for the living of Long Dritton was a very poor one, and my father's purse was never shut against the claims of charity. It was a great blow to me when, within a couple of months of my marriage, my father died after a few days' illness; but when, eighteen months later, my other great trouble fell upon me, I no longer grieved that he had been taken.
"My husband had hired a small furnished house at St. John's Wood, London, which stood in its own grounds and was surrounded by a high wall. Its position was a very secluded one, so much so that it could not be overlooked from any other house. Your father had never enlightened me in definite terms as to the nature of the business in which he was engaged, but I had a vague notion that he was connected, although in what capacity I was wholly ignorant, with some important firm in the City. Sometimes his duties took him from home for a week or ten days at a time. At other times there would be days when he never went beyond the precincts of his own garden. He had given me to understand that his great hobby was experimental chemistry, and he had fitted up a room on the top floor of the house as a laboratory where he often worked till far into the night, and the door of which, whether he was engaged there or not, was always kept locked. Considering the number of people whose acquaintance he had made in the shires, it seemed strange that he should know so few people in London, but so it was. He belonged to no club, we saw very little company, and he rarely took me anywhere except now and then to the theatre. Such callers as we had were all men, many of them being foreigners of different nationalities. I usually got away from them to my own room as soon as possible, and Philip seemed pleased that I should do so.
"All this time, although many of my illusions had taken to themselves wings, I was by no means unhappy. Philip, while never demonstrative, was kind in his careless, easy-going fashion; in fact, I may say that I believe he was as fond of me as it was in his nature to be of anyone. And then, by-and-by, you were born, and life seemed to me a sweeter thing than it had ever been before.
"It was when you were about four months old that the crash came. There is no need for me to dwell on that time, nor to recapitulate in detail all I had to go through. It is enough to say--and it may now be said once for all--that Philip Cordery was proved to have been the leader and guiding spirit of one of the most notorious gangs of bank-note forgers with which the present century has had to do. I saw him but twice after his conviction. A month or two after my second interview with him he died. A little later, through the death of an uncle, I came in for a legacy (taking his name at the same time), the income derivable from which has enabled me to keep up a home such as you have known as long as you can remember. At my death the capitalised amount will become yours to deal with as you may deem best."
Philip had refrained from interrupting his mother's narrative by a word; indeed, his interest in the tragic story she had to tell was too intense to allow of his willingly breaking in upon it even for a moment. When she had come to an end the silence that ensued was broken by a deep-drawn sigh from him. "Poor mother! poor mother!" he murmured half aloud. It was on her and on all she had undergone that his thoughts were dwelling just then, rather than on that mysterious entity--to him he would remain for ever a mystery and a wonder--Philip Cordery, the author of his being; or even on the effect which his mother's revelation might have on his own future.
Presently Mrs. Winslade spoke again. "You will now be able to comprehend one thing which has doubtless puzzled you more than enough in days gone by, and that is why I have led so persistently secluded a life, seeing so little company under my own roof and scarcely ever visiting anywhere. Never feeling sure from day to day that the secret of my past might not by some mischance become public property, I was determined that the good folk of Iselford should not have it in their power to say that I forced my way into their society under false pretences--that I had sought them out and sat by their firesides, being conscious all the time there was that in my history which I would be ashamed to have them know. It is they who have sought me out; it is they who have thrust themselves on me. In so far my conscience holds me free from blame."
[CHAPTER IV.]
IN WHICH MISS SUDLOW SPEAKS HER MIND.
Philip Winslade did not accompany his mother to church on Sunday morning. His heart was still so sore, he was still so mentally shaken by his mother's revelation that, like the stricken deer, he craved for solitude the most absolute. It was a craving Mrs. Winslade was too wise to combat. She herself had suffered in like manner in years gone by, and her heart bled for her boy.
Phil still held firmly by his overnight determination to make a clean breast of it to the Vicar at their interview on the morrow, and it was so evidently the right thing to do that on no account would his mother have breathed a syllable in any effort to dissuade him therefrom. In the course of the afternoon the Vicar's note was delivered at the Cottage, and after a first reading it seemed both to Phil and Mrs. Winslade as if a brief providential breathing-space had been accorded them. The evil day was only put off for a time; but it was a respite, and they were grateful for it.