“Stuff and nonsense!” replied Mrs Wiseman. “Stella told me all about young Ramsay, who is engaged to a girl in Scotland. Besides, the letter is not in his handwriting. I got Stella to write him a note asking him to come to luncheon to-day, and here is his reply; you can see that the writing is quite different.”
Mr Bloxam gave a gasp of relief when Stella’s innocence was established, but he suddenly remembered Lavinia, and a look of such abject misery came into his face that Mrs Wiseman felt a twinge of regret at the success of her plan. Mr Wiseman collapsed into abject helplessness; he felt he had been a party to some dark plot, and his wife became, for the moment, terrible to him. She, however, relieved the tension of the situation by saying—
“You have all been guilty of a cruel injustice to poor Stella, and the least atonement you can make is to say nothing whatever about this business to anyone. It would cause Mr Wardley, besides, great annoyance if he were to hear that she had been suspected in this manner. Let us try to forget all about it. Luncheon will be ready in a few minutes.”
In the course of the afternoon Stella, although still rather pallid and extremely nervous, discovered that she felt well enough to come to the drawing-room, and it was at about the same time that Mr Wardley found himself sufficiently recovered to walk down to the Parsonage. He also looked pale, and there was an alarming brightness about his eye. Mrs Wiseman ushered him into the drawing-room in which Stella was sitting alone, closed the door on him, and mounted guard at the passage.
After a reasonable interval Mrs Wiseman, who had been sadly neglecting her housekeeping duties whilst following the dark and devious paths of intrigue, tapped at the door. Mr Wardley arose, drew Stella’s arm within his own, and advanced to meet the good conspirator. The faces of the lovers shone with such radiant happiness that any twinges of remorse she felt with reference to the part she had played disappeared for ever. She wept for very joy of sympathy, and rejoiced as Jael did after her treacherous undoing of Sisera, at the laying of the foundation-stone of this edifice of happiness which had been hewn from the quarries of circumstance by her own reprehensible hands.
It is not necessary to refer to subsequent events otherwise than in the most general terms, with the exception of a conversation which took place on the night of the day upon which all these important occurrences took place. By the time Mrs Wiseman felt justified in resting from her labours incidental to preparing for the triple wedding which was to be solemnised on the following day, the night was somewhat far spent. Then she had to go and enjoy a final gush over Stella, and take a hurried survey of that enraptured damsel’s wardrobe, which, so great had been the general preoccupation during the past week, she had not even given a passing thought to. What with one thing and another, it was midnight before she retired to her bedroom. One circumstance may possibly have weighed with her in indulging herself in such a long dawdle in Stella’s room—namely, that she was just a little bit afraid of a tête-à-tête with her husband, and she wanted to give him ample opportunity of going to sleep before she joined him. However, when she entered the room, she found him wide awake and looking like Rhadamanthus in an extremely bad temper.
“My goodness, Joe, are you still awake?”
“Yes, Louisa; and so will you be until I hear a full explanation of the events of to-day.”
“Very well, Joe; where shall I begin? Pray do not forget that you assisted me in bringing about what happened after I told you what I was working for.”
Mr Wiseman groaned heavily in spirit. This fact, which his wife so flippantly reminded him of, had been rankling all day in his hitherto blameless conscience like a torturing thorn. The other thing that caused him acute misery was the suspicion that his wife had told him a falsehood.