This Man's Wife Part 55

"I would ha' been at sea, if it hadn't ha' been for the trouble yonder,"

he said, after a pause.

"Ho!"

Tom Porter raised his hand to scratch his head, but remembered in time, and turned it under his drab coat tail.

"Very sorry," he said at last, without moving a muscle.

"Thank you," said Thisbe sharply and then. "You needn't wait."

"Needn't wait it is," said Tom Porter in a gruff growl, and giving one hand a sort of throw up towards his forehead, and one leg a kick out behind, he went off through a door, perfectly unconscious of the fact that Thisbe's countenance had unconsciously softened, as she stood admiring the breadth of Tom Porter's shoulders and the general solidity of his build.

Meanwhile Millicent stood waiting until a well-known cough announced the coming of Sir Gordon, who entered the room and with grave courtesy placed a chair for his visitor.

"I expected you, Mrs Hallam," he said with a voice full of sympathy; and, as he spoke, he remained standing.

Millicent raised her veil, looked at him with her handsome face contracted by mental pain and with an angry, almost fierce glow in her eyes.

"You expected me?" she said, repeating his words with no particular emphasis or intonation.

"Yes; I thought you would come to an old friend for help and counsel at a time like this."

A pa.s.sionate outburst was ready to rush forth, but Millicent restrained it, and said coldly:

"My old friend--my father's old friend."

"Yes," he replied; "I hope a very sincere old friend."

"Then why is my poor injured husband in prison?" There was a fierce emphasis in the words that made Sir Gordon raise his brows. He looked at her wonderingly, as if he had not expected his visitor to take this line of argument.

Then he pointed again to a chair.

"Will you not take a seat, Mrs Hallam?" he said gently. "You have come to me then for help?"

"No," she cried, ignoring his request. "I have come for justice to my poor husband, who for the faults of others, by the scheming of his enemies, is now lying in prison awaiting his trial."

Sir Gordon leaned his elbow on the chimney-piece, and with his finger nails tapped the top of the black marble clock that ticked so steadily there.

"You went over to Lindum yesterday to see Hallam?"

"I did."

"He requested you to come and see me?"

"Yes; it was his wish, or--"

"You would not have come," he said with a sad smile upon his lips.

"No. I would have stood in the place where the injustice of men had placed me, and trusted to my own integrity and innocence for my acquittal."

Sir Gordon drew a long breath like a sigh of relief. He had been watching Millicent closely, as if he were suspicious either that she was playing a part, or had been bia.s.sed by her husband. But the true loving trust and belief of the woman shone out in her countenance and rang in her words. True woman--true wife! Let the world say what it would, her place was by her husband, and in his defence she was ready to lay down her life.

Sir Gordon sighed then with relief, for even now his old love for Millicent burned brightly. She had been his idol of womanly perfection, and he had felt, as it were, a contraction about his heart as the suspicion crept in for a moment that she was altered for the worse-- changed by becoming the wife of Robert Hallam.

"Mrs Hallam--Millicent, my child, what am I to say to you?" he cried at length. "How am I to speak without wounding you? I would not give you pain to add to that which you already suffer."

She looked at him angrily. His words seemed to her, in her overstrained anxiety, hypocritical and evasive.

"I asked you why my husband is cast into prison for the crimes of others?"

Sir Gordon gazed at her pityingly.

"You do not answer," she said. "Then tell me this: Are you satisfied with the degradation he has already suffered? Is he not to be set free?"

"Can you not spare me, Mrs Hallam? Will you not spare yourself?"

"No. I cannot spare you. I cannot spare myself. My husband is helpless: the fight against his enemies must be carried on by me."

"His enemies, Mrs Hallam? Who are they? Himself and his companions."

"You, and that despicable creature who has professed to be our friend, the companion of my child. I saw you planning it together with your wretched menial, Thickens."

Sir Gordon shook his head sadly.

"My dear Mrs Hallam," he said, "you do us all an injustice. Let us change this conversation. Believe me, I want to help you, your child, and your ruined parents."

Millicent started at the last words--ruined parents. There her ideas were obscured and wanting in the clearness with which she believed she saw the truth. But even the explanation of this seemed come at last, and there was a scornful look in her eyes as she exclaimed:

"I want no help. I want justice."

"Then what do you ask of me?" he said coldly, as he felt the impossibility of argument at such a time.

"My husband's freedom, your apology, and declaration to the whole world that he has been falsely charged. You can do no more. It is impossible to wipe out this disgrace."

He made a couple of steps towards her, and took her cold hands in his, raised them to his lips with tender reverence, and kissed them.

"Millicent, my child," he said, with his voice sounding very deep and soft, "do not blame me. My position was forced upon me, and you do not know the sacrifice it has cost me as I thought of you--the sacrifice it will be to Mr Dixon and myself to repair the losses we have sustained."

She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hands from his, and her eyes flashed with anger.

Her rage was but of a few moments' duration. Then she had flung herself upon her knees at his feet, and, with clasped hands and streaming eyes, sobbed forth:

"I am mad! I am mad! I don't know what I say. Sir Gordon--dear Sir Gordon, help us. It is not true. He is innocent. My n.o.ble husband could not have descended to such baseness. Sir Gordon, save him! save him!--my poor child's father--my husband, whom I love so well. You do not answer. You do not heed my words. Is man so cruel, then, to the unfortunate? Can you so treat the girl who reverenced you as a child-- the woman you said you loved? Man--man!" she cried pa.s.sionately, "can you not see that my heart is breaking? and yet you, who by a word could save him, now look on and coldly turn a deaf ear to my prayers. Oh, fool! fool! fool! that I was to think that help could come from man.

G.o.d, help me now, or else in Thy mercy let me die!"

As she spoke these last words, she threw her head back and raised her clasped hands in pa.s.sionate appeal, while Sir Gordon's lips moved as he repeated the first portion of her prayer, and then stayed and stood gazing down upon the agonised face.

"Millicent," he said at last, as he raised her from where she knelt, and almost placed her in an easy-chair, where she subsided, weak and helpless almost as a child, "listen to me."